Setting Your Annual Personal Vision
Every January, roofing company owners set business goals. Revenue targets. Crew expansion plans. New market entries. The business gets a vision. But what about you?
According to an October 2024 Vistage CEO Confidence Index survey, 67% of small business owners reported feeling disconnected from their original reasons for starting their company. They achieved growth but lost clarity on what growth was supposed to provide. The business succeeded while the owner struggled.
Personal vision answers a simple question: What do you want this year of your life to produce? Not for the business. For you. The distinction matters more than most owners realize.
Why Personal Vision Precedes Business Planning
Your business exists to serve your life, not the reverse. This sounds obvious, but behavior reveals beliefs. When owners sacrifice health, relationships, and personal fulfillment for business metrics, they have inverted the relationship.
Personal vision creates a filter for business decisions. Should you pursue that new commercial contract? Depends on whether it aligns with your personal vision. Should you hire that operations manager? Depends on what freedom you want your life to contain.
A November 2024 Harvard Business Review study on entrepreneurial well-being found that business owners who articulated clear personal visions reported 34% higher life satisfaction than those who focused exclusively on business metrics. More surprisingly, their businesses performed comparably or better. Personal clarity did not sacrifice business results.
When you know what you want your life to look like, business strategy becomes easier. Every opportunity gets evaluated against personal criteria, not just financial ones.
The Four Domains of Personal Vision
Comprehensive personal vision addresses four life domains. Neglecting any domain creates imbalance that eventually undermines the others.
Professional Identity
What role do you want to play in your business this year? Not what role you currently play, but what role you want to play. Do you want to remain the chief salesperson, or do you want to step back into strategic oversight? Do you want to be in the field, or do you want to build systems that let others handle operations?
Your professional identity extends beyond your roofing company. How do you want to be known in your industry? What contributions do you want to make to your trade association, your community, your employees’ careers?
Define the professional you want to become this year, not just the tasks you plan to complete.
Health and Energy
Your body is the platform everything else runs on. What physical condition do you want to be in by December? What energy level do you need to pursue your other goals?
Be specific. “Get healthier” means nothing. “Run a 5K in under 30 minutes” or “lose 20 pounds” or “sleep 7 hours minimum nightly” creates accountability. According to a June 2024 American College of Sports Medicine study on executive health, business owners who set specific fitness metrics achieved 2.3 times higher completion rates than those with general intentions.
Your energy capacity determines what you can accomplish in every other domain. Investing here pays compound returns.
Relationships
Who matters most in your life, and what do those relationships need this year? Your spouse, children, parents, close friends, key employees. Each relationship has a current state and a desired future state.
Maybe your marriage needs dedicated weekly time without business intrusion. Maybe your teenager needs more of your presence before they leave for college. Maybe your aging parent needs support you have been postponing.
Personal vision includes the people you care about. Business success that destroys relationships is not success.
Personal Growth and Fulfillment
What experiences do you want to have this year? What do you want to learn? What have you postponed that deserves attention?
This domain covers hobbies, travel, education, spiritual development, creative pursuits, and anything else that feeds your soul but does not directly produce business results. These activities are not luxuries. They are requirements for sustainable high performance.
August 2024 research from the Entrepreneurs Organization found that business owners who maintained non-work pursuits reported 28% lower burnout rates and 19% higher business satisfaction compared to those fully immersed in their companies.
Creating Your Vision Statement
Vision without documentation becomes wishful thinking. Writing forces clarity and creates commitment.
The One-Page Vision
Limit your annual personal vision to one page. Constraints force prioritization. If everything is important, nothing is important.
Structure your page with four sections, one per domain. In each section, write two to three sentences describing what success looks like in December. Use present tense as if you have already achieved it. “I maintain 180 pounds and complete three workouts weekly” is stronger than “I want to lose weight and exercise more.”
The Why Behind Each Goal
Under each vision statement, write one sentence explaining why this matters. The why provides motivation when discipline fades. “I maintain this weight because I want to be active with my grandchildren for the next 20 years” carries more power than “I should be healthier.”
Your reasons are personal. They do not need to impress anyone. They need to motivate you at 5 AM when sleep sounds better than the gym.
The Non-Negotiables
Identify three to five non-negotiables for the year. These are commitments you will not break regardless of business pressure. Weekly date night. Sunday family dinners. Morning workout before email. Annual fishing trip with old friends.
Non-negotiables protect what matters most from being sacrificed to what screams loudest. Business will always provide urgent demands. Non-negotiables ensure important items stay protected.
Connecting Personal Vision to Business Strategy
Personal vision should inform business planning, not exist separately from it. After completing your personal vision, evaluate your business plans against it.
If your personal vision includes spending more time with family, does your business plan include hiring that operations manager who would make that possible? If your vision includes better health, does your schedule include protected workout time?
Misalignment between personal vision and business strategy guarantees frustration. Either revise the business plan to serve your personal vision, or acknowledge that you are choosing business over personal priorities this year. At least make the choice consciously.
Monthly Vision Check-Ins
Annual visions fail without regular attention. Schedule monthly check-ins with yourself to assess progress across all four domains.
Keep these check-ins brief. Fifteen minutes at month end reviewing your one-page vision against reality. Where are you on track? Where have you drifted? What adjustments do you need for next month?
A September 2024 study from the International Coaching Federation found that individuals who reviewed goals monthly achieved 42% higher completion rates than those who set goals without systematic review.
Start Here
- Block two hours this week for uninterrupted personal vision work, away from your office and without your phone
- Write your one-page vision covering all four domains: professional identity, health, relationships, and personal growth
- Identify your three non-negotiables for 2025 and add them to your calendar as recurring protected time
Sources:
- Vistage. (October 2024). CEO Confidence Index Survey Q4.
- Harvard Business Review. (November 2024). Entrepreneurial Well-Being and Business Performance Study.
- American College of Sports Medicine. (June 2024). Executive Health and Goal Achievement Report.
- Entrepreneurs Organization. (August 2024). Work-Life Integration Study.
- International Coaching Federation. (September 2024). Goal Review Frequency and Achievement Study.
Your business will demand everything you have. Personal vision ensures something remains for everything else. The owners who thrive long-term are those who define success beyond revenue, then protect that definition against the constant pull of urgent business needs. This is your life. Define what you want it to contain.