It's January 2027. You're back from the December break, and for once you've actually sat down and written your goals for the year:
- Grow turnover by 20%.
- Hire a manager.
- Take a proper holiday.
- Finally fix the cash flow.
You feel good about them. This is going to be the year.
Now fast forward to March. The holiday hasn't been booked. The manager's job ad is still sitting in your drafts. Turnover is about where it was last year. And the cash flow? You've stopped looking. Nobody cancelled the goals. They just quietly stopped mattering.
Sound familiar? It's not because you're lazy or undisciplined. In my experience, most goals fail for a much simpler reason: they're missing one of three ingredients. And when one is missing, or when one is far too strong, the goal doesn't stand a chance.
The three things every goal needs
For a goal to really work, it needs three things: pain, pleasure and risk. Take any one of them away and the goal won't be achieved.
- Pain is the price of growth. No pain, no gain. Every goal worth chasing comes with growing pains: the pain of doing the work, of learning or studying something new, of installing new software, of spending money you'd rather keep, of paying yourself less for a while so you can reinvest, of hiring more people, of learning to be a manager and a leader instead of doing it all yourself. Think of a muscle. You strain it, it hurts, and that's exactly how it grows stronger. Walk barefoot on stones long enough and your feet harden. If a goal doesn't stretch you at all, it won't change anything either. No pain, no glory. Take "hire a manager." The pain isn't the job ad. It's paying a salary before you see the return, spending weeks training someone, and the hardest one of all: letting go of the work you've always done yourself. If you're not ready to feel that, the job ad stays in your drafts.
- Pleasure isn't about the goal being fun all the time. That's an illusion. Pleasure is about finding joy in the direction you're heading. Think about the difference between a task and a goal. Dropping off the dry cleaning is a task. Buying bread and milk on the way home is a task. Nobody gets excited about those. A goal should feel different. When you picture the business you're building and what it will mean for you, your team and your family, there should be joy in it. "Grow turnover by 20%" has no joy in it. It's a number. Now ask what that 20% buys you. Maybe it's the manager who frees up your Fridays, or the money to finally take the family away for three weeks. That's a goal you can feel. What growth makes possible can light you up. Without that joy, there's no pull, and you won't keep going when it gets hard. So ask yourself: does my goal have joy? Does it inspire me? Does it excite me?
- Risk is skin in the game. There has to be some kind of investment, whether it's money, time, effort or your reputation. We value what we pay for. Anything that comes free, we tend to ignore. Pay for something and you wake up. Pay a lot and you take notice, pay attention and look after it. The best way to test whether there's enough risk is to ask: if I don't do this, what do I have to lose? We connect far more strongly with loss than with gain. Then ask one more question: who's chasing me? Maybe it's a payment you won't be able to make, a competitor who's gaining on you, or a client you'll lose if you don't go after them with everything you've got. Without something chasing you, it's too easy to let the goal quietly slip. "Fix the cash flow" has been on your list for three years. Why does it never happen? Because nothing is chasing you. Tell your accountant, your bank manager or your team that the overdraft will be cleared by June, and suddenly someone is watching. That's skin in the game.
When all three are there, in the right balance, a goal stops being a wish and starts being a plan you'll actually act on.
When the balance is off
Having all three isn't enough. They need to be in balance, because too much of any one of them breaks the goal just as surely as too little.
Too much pain, and you freeze. Growing pains are healthy. But when a goal asks for too much at once, the new system, the new hires and the new skills all in the same month, the pain becomes overwhelming. It turns into something to avoid, not something to work on. Owners in this place put off the training, delay the hire and dodge the hard conversations. They know exactly what needs to happen. They just can't face it. Try to hire a manager, overhaul your cash flow and push for 20% growth all in the same quarter, and something will break, usually you.
Too much pleasure, and you get flaky. When a goal is all upside, it turns into a hobby. "This is fun, I don't need to worry about the money or the figures." You see this with the exciting new product, the shiny new branch or the side project that never has to make a profit. It feels good, right up until the bills arrive.
Too much risk, and the alarm bells go off. When everything is on the line, fear and anxiety take over. You stop thinking clearly, you make rushed decisions, or you pull out at the first sign of trouble. Part of the problem is how we picture loss. Mention a brand new car and we quickly talk ourselves out of it as unrealistic. But mention losing a client, and in our heads we jump straight to living in the gutter, forgetting the many steps in between. You don't need to put all your chips on black. You need enough risk to pay attention, but not so much that you freeze. It's like riding a motorbike. Yes, there's a chance you'll fall. But oh man, there's a chance you'll enjoy the ride.
The goals that get achieved sit in the middle. Enough pain to make you move. Enough pleasure to keep you going. Enough risk to make you take it seriously, but not so much that it paralyses you.
Test your own goal
Go back to your four January goals, or the one goal that keeps slipping. Run each one through pain, pleasure and risk. You'll quickly see which one is missing something, and why it stalled. Ask yourself:
- Pain: What will I have to push through to get there? Is it enough to stretch me, or so much that I'm avoiding it?
- Pleasure: Does my goal have joy? Does it inspire me? Does it excite me? Or does it sound like another task on my list?
- Risk: If I don't do this, what do I have to lose? Who's chasing me? Is there enough at stake to keep me paying attention, but not so much that I freeze?
If one of the three is missing, add it. If one is overpowering the others, turn it down. Sometimes the fix is as simple as breaking a frightening goal into a smaller first step, or attaching a real deadline and a real consequence to a goal that's become too comfortable.
A goal with the right balance of pain, pleasure and risk is a goal you'll actually chase.
Want to know which goals your business needs most right now? Take the 10 minute Business Driver Scorecard. Or if you'd like help setting a goal that sticks, let's talk.