Walking the Walk with Your New Years Resolution

As you’ve likely seen by now, it’s the season for new years resolutions. Every year, most people find some sort of goal for themselves that maybe they weren’t able to make time for last year, lost focus of, or gives them the opportunity to try something new. These aren’t just limited to personal endeavors, however — many take this time to vow to make changes in their business.

Now, we usually laugh and roll our eyes at those claiming to be completely different once the clock strikes midnight, with no effective plan on how they will meet these goals. The trick to maintaining and achieving your new years resolution lies in more than simply stating you are going to do it. Now that you’ve talked the talk, it’s time to walk the walk. Here are the best ways to follow through with a resolution for your business in 2018.

Get specific with your goals.

Having numerical, detailed goals instead of something generic like “improve customer service” are more likely to be achieved because they are essentially pass/fail: you clearly know if you’ve achieved it or not. They also hold you accountable and tend to be more time-sensitive, which compels you to act more than an abstract goal would. If your goal is to improve sales without any specific benchmarks, what would compel you to do it this instant? But if you resolve to improve sales by $5,000 in January, you know the attributes that determine whether you achieve this goal.

Be constantly aware of where you are in the timeline of completing your goals.

Since we recommend goals that have a time-stamped deadline, benchmark, etc., it’s important to be constantly aware of where you are in relation to this timeline so you can complete it by your given deadline. Give yourself constant reminders, benchmarks, and steps to complete your goals in instead of getting overwhelming by doing it all at once.

Come up with an action plan.

Have an action plan for completing your resolutions, instead of setting out with the mindset of “I’m going to find a way to do this”. Without a plan in place, your goal can seem unrealistic and discouraging. When you have an action plan, you’ll break it down into step-by-step goals that make it more attainable. Not to mention, when you’re over prepared that gives you the opportunity to thwart problems that may arise.

Avoid the same mistakes.

Be fully aware of the triggers that let you slide back into unfinished goals. Acknowledge why you don’t achieve these goals and isolate these same mistakes, so that you’ll have a different route to success this time by avoiding them.

A new years resolution is just a fancy way to dress up a goal - but it somehow is much more motivating when you see the clean slate of a fresh year instead of being knee-deep in the season. Think of where you want to be at the end of 2018, and use these tips to help you get there!