Category: Uncategorized

January 6, 2026.  By Todd Paetznick

Welcome to 2026!!  Making resolutions is a good idea for the new year.  In the process, we recognize that something in our lives needs to improve.  Yet, based on history, not even 10% of us stick to our resolutions for even a month!  Most of us give up and abandon our resolutions before January is even over.   Why don’t our resolutions stick?  And what should we do instead?  The remedy is helpful for our personal lives and also our business.

Recognize that most resolutions are aspirational, something we want to happen.  The most common New Year’s resolutions involve eating better and exercising more. They also include losing weight, managing finances better, and spending more time with family and friends.  These are all great goals to achieve, but we secretly want our resolutions to happen with minimal to no effort.  Missing from most of our resolutions is how we will achieve them.  Joining a gym is a good first step toward hitting our fitness and weight-loss resolution.  Joining doesn’t produce the desired result; however, we have to go to the gym and work out regularly.  By itself, a gym membership is not enough to deliver the results we desire.

A tried-and-true method for achieving goals and resolutions is to make them SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.  Specific, detailing what the result will be and why it is important to us.  Measurable, defining metrics and milestones to be met along the way to achieving the goal.  Achievable, set a realistic goal. Ensure it can be met within the time frame, such as one year for our New Year’s resolutions.  Relevant, the achievement of the goal matters and fits into our longer-term objectives.  Time-bound, setting a time for the accomplishment’s completion, and also the more near-term goals along the way.  

Whether setting goals for our personal lives or our business, one year is too long to accomplish a goal. We need to define intermediate steps. This way, we can see measured progress along the way.  Joining a gym is a good first step, but our minds work on timeframes shorter than a year.  Three months at a time, a month at a time, and even a week at a time.  Items included on a weekly to-do list are much more difficult to ignore and defer than longer-term items.  Scheduling time every week to go to the gym is a good practice toward achieving our health goals.  

New Year’s resolutions and business goal-setting share the need to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.  Happy New Year!  May you achieve all your resolutions!!  

Todd Paetznick is a Business Coach who helps small- and medium-sized organizations flourish.  He is an implementer of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), a business optimization framework that has helped thousands of organizations achieve new success and long-term sustained growth.  His company, Invert Business Coaching, helps people and their organizations reach their full potential.  Todd is also in leadership with CBMC, the Christian Business Men’s Connection, where he manages the Trusted Advisor Forums (TAF) for the metro Atlanta area.

December 30, 2025. By Todd Paetznick

I have never been a big proponent of New Year’s resolutions.  I have always believed that if there is something needing change in my life, I should act immediately. It’s better to act now rather than wait until the start of a new year.

New beginnings are a good time to reflect on the past. We can adjust our plans for the future to address changes that have happened. It’s also essential to consider those changes we can anticipate.  After all, we can’t know for sure what the future holds.  Adaptability is a strength.  The decisions and plans we need to make are much easier when we know where we want to go.  Sometimes, we need to modify our plans to meet long-term objectives because of forces outside our control.  But the best strategy for planning and decision-making is to start with the end in mind.  The end is what we want the future to look like.  

The 10-Year Target is where we should start.  This is far enough into the future yet near enough to the present that we can use it to build our plans.  For our businesses, a 10-year target needs to be specific, including annual revenue, profitability, employee headcount, and number of locations.  Using these desired metrics, we can work backwards from our goal and plan appropriately to reach those objectives.  Our goals should be aggressive but also realistic.  As Yogi Berra famously said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.”

A Three-Year Picture offers an intermediate view of what our world needs to look like to hit our longer-term target.  At neither the three- nor ten-year mark will we make specific plans on how to achieve those goals.  The how-to portion of our planning occurs during shorter-term goal-setting.    

One-Year Plans are specific in measurement, again, and start to describe what we need to achieve and the plans we need to make to achieve our goals.  For our businesses, one-year goals describe outcomes.  We need to project and measure revenue, profit, personnel numbers, and a few other targets, for example.  Other annual goals describe what will take the entire year to accomplish.  Rolling out a new system, expanding into a new region, or acquiring another company are examples.  The number of goals should not be a laundry list of everything we want to achieve during the year.  Instead, think bigger picture.  The number of annual goals should be small and manageable, somewhere around six or seven.  Having too many goals will overwhelm us. We become paralyzed because we do not know what to do next.

90-Day Plans are the milestones that mark the good progress we are making toward our annual objectives.  People think best in 90-day chunks.  EOS calls these 90-day chunks “Rocks”.  When hiking mountain trails in northern New Hampshire, cairns often mark the path. These markers are useful when there is no obvious route across the rocky terrain.  Cairns are simply stacks of rocks. They are built by people who have been there before. These builders help others so they can find their way, too.  In business, rocks are an appropriate term for waypoints toward the achievement of an annual goal.  Like cairns on a hiking trail, business leaders and managers know where the company is going. They set rocks so everyone else knows the way. 

Monthly Goals represent what needs to be accomplished to reach the 90-day objective, or Rock.  They are indicators that we are on the path and the next Rock is in sight.  Ensuring accountability for working toward monthly and weekly goals is important. It guarantees that the proper steps are taken. Progress is also being made.

Weekly To Do items are steps we need to take over the next week. These steps help us meet the monthly goals. They ensure we hit our mark. Our to-do items are connected to our monthly goals, which roll up to our quarterly rocks, and annual goals.  They are all related.  We can effectively prioritize what we need to do next when we know where we are going.  

For New Year’s planning, start with where you want to be in ten years and work backwards.  What targets do you want to hit ten years from now?  Then start working backwards to identify the intermediary objectives to be achieved and the steps to be taken.  

Todd Paetznick is a Business Coach who helps small- and medium-sized organizations flourish.  He is an implementer of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), a business optimization framework that has helped thousands of organizations achieve new success and long-term sustained growth.  His company, Invert Business Coaching, helps people and their organizations reach their full potential.  Todd is also in leadership with CBMC, the Christian Business Men’s Connection, where he manages the Trusted Advisor Forums (TAF) for the metro Atlanta area.

Success is primarily the result of hard work, not just great ideas.  Creativity and inspiration are essential. Until something is done with those ideas, they have no value. No results are ever generated.  Creativity and inspiration start a process that solves problems. This process can bring about change and generate positive results.  Until something is done, until action is taken, even the best ideas are worthless.  When something is done, the world can become a better place.  

Hope is not a strategy; we have all heard the saying, and it is true.  Some of the world’s greatest thinkers have reached the same conclusion.  Good thoughts, vision, ideas, inspiration, and the like, are only concepts until something gets done to make them a reality.

Thomas Edison held over 1,000 patents, including the light bulb and the motion picture camera.  Often being labeled a genius, Edison remarked that, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”  He understood that hard work was the majority of what was needed for his vision to become a reality.  But most people never saw Edison’s hard work. They didn’t see the financial investments he made in research and development. They only heard about his vision. They considered him a genius and enjoyed the results.

Gino Wickman is the founder of EOS International (EOSi). The company has helped tens of thousands of organizations. These organizations have grown stronger and more successful through the implementation of its principles.  Wickman said, “Vision without traction is hallucination.”  Traction, like a car tire, needs a grip on the pavement to move ahead.  

The apostle James wrote that “Faith without works is dead.”  Believing in the existence of God is not enough to achieve salvation, according to James.  True faith, he wrote, must is proven through actions that reflect love and care for others; hallmarks of biblical teaching.  Genuine faith leads people to do good deeds. However, good deeds by themselves do not result in a right relationship with God.  It is through what is done that faith is demonstrated as being alive and active. 

In business as in every other aspect of life, wishful thinking alone does not produce results.  Thoughts and ideas are not powerful enough to create anything or solve the problems that people encounter.  Taking action and doing something is the first step toward making a difference in the world.  

By Todd Paetznick, December 16, 2025

Todd is a writer, speaker, and Professional EOS Implementer based in metro Atlanta.  To learn more about the business coaching services he offers, please visit: eosworldwide.com/todd-paetznick