With the new year soon to be upon us, it’s a time to reflect and and set resolutions for your upcoming successful year. The sad fact is that many people make resolutions only to see them fail. As I’d written in a previous post, “A goal unrealized can have the power to take you down a path of despair and the inability to complete other tasks on your list.” However, if you set a goal aka resolution and meet it, the success of that will feed further success and achievements.
How can you keep your resolutions? Here are three ways:
Write down the end goal. Break a large goal into bite sized chunks. Set deadlines to keep yourself on track. Build in a cushion and make allowances for interruptions and meetings you didn’t plan for.
Write a to-do list and feel power you realize when you cross a task off. Daily progress documentation keeps you on target amps up the motivation.
Find a trusted colleague to pair up with and work to keep each other on track. Report in several times a week. Share successes. Discuss setbacks. Move forward from a “failure” and look at it as a learning experience — ask your accountability partner to help you brainstorm potential reasons for and solutions to any deadlines you may have missed.
These 5 “tips” are strategies that have made the efforts of many great people grow exponentially.
What are you doing to stay ahead of your business competitors? There are steps you can take to edge them out and here are just five of my favorites:
Believe – Believe in yourself and your success. What you tell yourself is a self fulfilling prophesy. Tell your self great things!
Failure Is A Lie – You can’t fail if you do not quit! Do NOT quit! Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start over.
Maintain Integrity – Have a strong work ethic for yourself and your staff. Be the compass others around you use to find their way.
Be Decisive – Putting off decision-making leads to stress and will cause you to miss many great opportunities that you are exposed to every day.
Become and Stay Healthy – Operate at peak levels all the time! Take care of your mind as well as your body. Rest, eat right, exercise. Realize your most creative moments come from a healthy and rested mind.
Make these 5 things your daily experience and I assure you you will prosper at levels you never knew were possible. This is a great start in staying ahead of your competition!
Suffering a failure or a set back, while frustrating, may not be the end of the world. Failure, as a matter of fact, may propel your business to even greater levels of success. It doesn’t seem to add up, but I believe it does.
Here are my reasons for believing that failing doesn’t make you, or your business idea, a failure:
Failing means you tried something new. You’re growing, expanding and keeping yourself open to new ideas
Failing means that you’re always learning. You’re not happy with doing things the way they’ve always been done. You want to take an old idea and try a new spin
Failing means that you are taking action and moving your business forward. You’re not allowing yourself or your business to stagnate
If you don’t take a chance and throw that dart at the board how will you know if you’re going to hit a bull’s eye? When did you last fail and what lessons did you learn?
We’re past the rush of the holidays and have settled into the first couple of days of the New Year. It’s sometimes easy to feel deflated once the hustle and bustle is over and in many parts of the country you’re facing long winter days with limited sunlight. What can you do? I will admit that because I am in Arizona I have a bit of an advantage and access to almost year-round sunshine and the ability to hike and bike, but if you don’t what can you do?
As a business owner and coach I can see how both you and your employees might be battling the post holiday blues, so here are my tips for kicking off 2014 with a happy, healthy attitude:
Be realistic with your resolutions or expectations for the year ahead. Did you know that many of us make resolutions and then break them before January is even over? Be detailed and realistic with goals and you will have a better chance of sticking with it and attaining them.
Be physically active and healthy overall and this will help you power through. If you can’t get outside to take a walk then do short bursts of exercise right inside your office. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer salty or sugary snacks. As business owners we need to be healthy both mentally and physically.
Take a breath. I am a big advocate of self-care. There are several times throughout the workday when I will simply walk away from my desk and find a quiet spot to simply breathe and focus my energies. This helps me when I go back to my desk and my clients because I am energized and reinvigorated.
Did you make resolutions and do you think they are attainable and realistic? We’d love to hear!
The end of the year is typically a time when business owners step back and slow down. I think it’s the best time of year to spend time planning for the new year ahead. Many individuals and entrepreneurs look at January 1 of any year as that magical time to put resolutions into place. If you wait until then and if your plans take time to bring to fruition, you may be missing out on valuable opportunities.
I take time on or around December 1 to look at what I did last year and then plan for next year. That way when January 1 rolls around I am armed with fresh ideas and a great way to kick off the new year.
Here are some of the steps I take to form my strategies:
Look at what worked. You need to have metrics in place to help you understand whether you’ve met goals you’ve set. Look at what didn’t work. If something didn’t work could it have simply been bad timing? Was it a strategy that just isn’t right for your industry? Was the execution of it just a bit “off”? Don’t completely discard an idea, it just might need to be on the back burner.
Look at ways to generate new leads and thereby generating more income. Again, what methods of lead generation are you applying currently that are working, what aren’t? Tweak them and have a new plan moving forward.
Look at your marketing plan. Analyze your results. Measure whether the effort is worth the money realized. Revamp if necessary.
When do you set your business resolutions? What works in your industry?
Have you ever heard the saying: “When you stop being better you stop being good”? I believe that is true and I am constantly doing things to improve myself and my life — both business and personal. If you stop learning you stagnate, you aren’t an interesting conversationalist and you don’t grow. Personal growth and business growth should be lifelong pursuits.
What can you to do keep improving? Here are my thoughts:
Keep in touch with your industry through reading trade journals and attending meetings.
Make sure you budget to attend meetings, conferences or workshops– even if it’s only one a year. Attendance will inspire you, allow you to meet new people and help grow your business.
Set aside time each week to read books or magazines on subjects that interest you on a personal level (it’s not all about work!)
If there are ways in which you can earn certifications in your field of expertise, do that and then announce it to your clients and on your social media pages.
Talk to yourself in an encouraging tone. Be positive and upbeat!
What is the last thing you did that amounted to self improvement?
