At the end of every year, there is pressure to make New Year’s resolutions, and, more often than not, a few weeks later, they are lost in the shuffle and you are left feeling disappointed. A resolution is a firm decision to do or to not do something. And while they often start with strong intentions, the very vague nature of them tends to make them very difficult to maintain.
What if you took this year as an opportunity to change the narrative? Why not use this time to set goals you want to achieve this year and how you will get there? Setting goals instead of resolutions is a way more inspiring and actionable way to make changes in the new year.
Goals provide you with direction to achieve desired outcomes. Creating goals involves intention setting, planning, preparing, and taking action. Lets break it down!
Determining where to begin can be the hardest step for setting your new goals. It is easier to break challenges into pillars or categories. It feels less overwhelming to place goals or improvements in a specific area.
Break your goals into three areas: Professional, Personal, and Financial.
These three pillars can lay the framework for an efficient goal-setting process and, in the long run, a happier you with a more straightforward path to success in your business. Make sure you don’t have a laundry list of goals under each; try to pick between 3-5 in each area.
We have this great printable tool to help you get started - but first let’s go over the key highlights to focus on when you are setting goals.
For your professional goal setting, focus on what you want to achieve with your business. It helps to ask yourself the following questions:
This should be one of the first things you evaluate as you move into the new year. Running a service-based small business will undoubtedly impact your personal life. If you don’t make a plan and set up goals, guidelines, and boundaries, this can leave you feeling stressed, overworked, and exhausted. Here are some areas to evaluate to make sure that your personal life doesn’t get overwhelmed while you are building your business:
Money, money, money. Yes, it does seem that it makes the world go-‘round, to a certain extent. So, this should be a main priority if you haven’t figured out your pricing, mastered any financial goals, or have a financial system for your business. Here are some questions that can help you define a few goals for the financial side of your business:
Asking yourself these questions will help ensure that you have a good sense of what improvements need to be made in your business and what goals to set. Pick 3-5 goals in each area that will make the most impact on your business. Write down how you will achieve these. Set yourself deadlines to attain them. Remember, the goals you set don’t all have to be accomplished at the same time, that’s just not realistic. Just aim to wrap up the year knowing you did your best to set yourself up with success.
You know your business the best and are also likely to be well aware of specific areas that need improvement. Going through this goal-setting evaluation process will help you create a plan of action that will enable you to run your business more effectively so that you can find success- in whichever way you define it- doing something you love.
Enter your email address for the printable worksheet! Along with being quick and easy to use, it can help you stay focused each month on what you want to accomplish.
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