Over the last two weeks we’ve had the pleasure of coming in contact with 400+ business owners across coaching sessions, Board of Directors Meetings and wrapping it all up with our latest Australian Entrepreneurs Summit. Each session was carefully designed to step away from the daily hustle of running your business and truly planning for the year ahead. Looking toward 2026, we encouraged all of our clients to get out of the operational chaos and give some deep thought into what lies ahead not only for next year, but even 5-10 years from now.
If you were in one of those sessions, I hope you found some inspiration to think BIG and plan your exciting future. If you weren’t with us across one of those days, here’s a flavour of some of the themes so you can play along at home.
Finding Your Purpose: Starting with Why
One of the foundational pieces of our discussions was all about finding your “why.”
One of the most popular and influential TED Talks is Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why.” Understanding your core purpose is like setting your compass for everything else, and it’s a crucial first step before tackling those big goals. Here’s the video we showed at the Summit
Shorter Version (approx. 7 mins) or the Full Version of his famous TED talk.
Defining Your Common Goals
From there, we explored the idea of common goals those big, significant goals that your whole team can rally around. These aren’t just your everyday targets; they’re future focused milestones. Pick a timeline that makes sense for you at some point in the future, think of a point in the future at a minimum three year out, but better yet make it a five-year or ten-year vision that the entire team is working toward. For us at EBS we have two Common Goals that stretch to 2032. When everyone is aligned on these common goals, it sets a clear direction and builds a shared sense of purpose.
Climbing the Goal Success Ladder
Now, let’s talk about the Goal Success Ladder. This is a framework we introduced to help break down those big goals into manageable steps. Here’s how the rungs of the ladder look:
- No Goals: The bottom rung, hopefully doesn’t happen too often but from time to time we can find ourselves here. This is where there are no clear goals at all.
- Internal Goals: The next rung is where you have goals in your heart and mind, but they’re not written down or shared with anyone else yet.
- Written Goals: This is a big focus area for us at the Entrepreneurial Business School. There’s real power in writing your goals down. In fact, a study by Dr. Gail Matthews found that people who write down their goals are 42% more likely to achieve them. Writing things down not only clarifies your intentions but also engages your subconscious to help guide you toward those goals over time.
- Publicly Spoken Goals: Once you’ve written them down, the next rung is to share those goals with others. When you communicate your goals publicly, you add a layer of commitment and accountability.
- Accountability and Tracking: The final rung is all about keeping track of your progress and holding yourself accountable. It’s one thing to have a goal, and another to regularly check in on how you’re doing and adjust as needed.
Using the Five Fs to Shape Your Goals
Last year when I wrote my goals down for the first time in a while I realised my goals were quite financially centric. Not that surprising to anyone that knows me well and certainly lines up with my DISC profile, so I challenged myself to add some more balance and think about the other things in life that I wanted to focus on. I also wanted to think about a way I could help others think about their goals. We’re all predisposed to focus on a particular passion or area that motivates us – the Five F’s was a simple way to get myself to think about other areas of my life where I’d like to Focus (yet another F )
- Financial Goals: What are your money related targets?
- Family Goals: How do you want to grow or support your family life?
- Fitness Goals: What personal health or fitness milestones do you have?
- Fun Goals: Don’t forget the importance of hobbies, friends, experiences or those bucket list items you’re chasing
- Faith Goals: This doesn’t have to be religious it can be any personal beliefs or values you want to nurture.
- And following recent coaching sessions I’ve added a playful sixth “F”: Philanthropic Goals, for those who want to give back to a particular cause, purpose or aspect of their community
As a final note, remember this idea often attributed to Bill Gates: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten.” It’s a powerful reminder to be patient with long-term goals while staying realistic about short-term expectations. Writing your goals down not only boosts your chance of success but also helps you keep that long-term perspective in mind.
One of my goals for 2026? Write more! I hope you’ve enjoyed these thoughts and to keep myself accountable you can expect to hear from me every week. I’m not sure what’s in store week to week but I look forward to staying in touch!
Darren Gloster
CEO – Australia & New Zealand
Entrepreneurial Business School
