New year, new goals. What are you looking forward to achieving this year?
At Business Blueprint, our goal is to do things bigger and better than 2017. And we want the same for you, too. To help you crush your goals for 2018, we have created a list to guide you so you can get cracking for another exciting year of business.
Refine Your Goals
Setting goals is the easy part. Achieving them is another story. You will need focus and proper planning. You will also need to explore the different channels you will use to accomplish those goals. You will have to test different ways so you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t.
If you have leftover goals from last year, you can add them to this year’s. Before you do, I suggest you re-evaluate why you were not able to achieve them. To do this, let’s review the S.M.A.R.T. goals guidelines:
S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym that stands for:
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Timed
Specific – When setting goals, it’s important to set specific ones. The more details you can provide for each, the better. Let’s say for example you want to generate more leads per week. Instead of saying ‘more’, you assign a specific number to it, like generate 100 leads per week and convert 10% into customers.
Measurable – How will you know you’ve achieved your goal? By measuring results. Put a measure in place so you’ll know if you’re on the right track in achieving a certain goal. Using the lead generation goal above as an example, you will need to market to more than 100 people everyday to increase the chances of generating 100 leads and converting 10% to customers.
Achievable – Do you think you will be able to achieve your target? Keep in mind the time frame that the goal needs to be accomplished. Also, do you have stakeholders? Do they agree with you that the action needed for lead generation is achievable?
Realistic – Take into consideration the resources required to accomplish your goals. Do you have the team, the knowledge, time, and funds needed? Will you be able to achieve your goal within the time frame set? These are questions you need to consider seriously.
Timely – When you set out to achieve a certain goal, make sure to put a time limit. This will put pressure on you to complete everything within that time frame. You will need to define milestones and the due date or the period of time that you are giving yourself to achieve this goal.
When you apply the S.M.A.R.T. principles, you’ll learn how you can refine your goals more. You’ll know which goals can still be broken down into mini goals that are more actionable when done in increments.
Less Over Thinking, More Doing
One of the biggest hurdles in accomplishing goals is something that you’re not aware you‘re doing. Sometimes because you want everything to be perfect you tend to overthink things. You over-analyze every little thing that needs to be done and before you realize it, you are already procrastinating.
This year, I want you to overthink less and do more. Stop wasting time on insignificant things. Start doing and get cracking on those goals. It’s okay if the process is not perfect. You can improve as you go along. The important thing is you get things done and you’ll be able to tick off your goals one by one.
Remember, “progress is better than perfection.”
Get started and you’ll be closer to achieving all your goals in 2018.
Spare Time for Education
Learning is a lifelong process. It doesn’t stop when you step out the classroom or when you graduate from University. In fact, you’ll discover that you’ll learn so much more outside of the academe.
At Business Blueprint, we are advocates of educating yourself. Self development and personal growth is crucial to success. It’s the reason why we do what we do, because we want to help you to achieve your goals and succeed in business.
Educating yourself should not be limited to technical skills. Learning something new is great but personal development and continued professional development is even better. Take advantage of free online course that will further improve your skills or supplement them. Continue studying because your business will benefit from a better you.
Now there are different ways you can educate yourself. You can learn online or you can get a mentor if you want something face to face or one on one. You can also buy books or listen to podcasts with the information you want to learn. You would know which medium works best for you.
If you want something more extensive, you can choose to enrol in business education programs such as our Business Blueprint program. When you sign up for our 12-month education program, you’ll gain access to live conferences, an online resources of videos, webinars, useful business systems, templates, and a business consultant you can talk to when needed. Best of all is an incredible community of business owners where you can network and learn from each other.
Strike a Balance
We’ve all heard of the term work-life balance time and time again. And I know this is something that can be challenging to achieve. But it’s important that we try to strike a balance between life and work because this will help us keep going in business when we encounter trying times.
One thing that will help you strike that needed balance in your life is focus. Try to focus on different aspects on your life and not just a few. Human Behaviour Expert, Dr John Demartini, once said that we need to focus on 7 areas of life namely: Mental (Education / Personal Development), Vocational (Career / Business), Financial, Family, Social, Physical, and Spiritual.
There are different ways of interpreting these areas and you are free to choose what interpretation you wish. The holistic approach is to incorporate all these into your goals. You can create small and major goals revolving around these. For example, for the physical area of life, your goal could be to live a healthier lifestyle. When you break them down to mini goals, they would be to: exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet and lose excess weight.
When you take care of your health, you’ll be able to work better and have more energy to accomplish your goals. This positive effect will also spill over in the other areas of your life and help you achieve the balance that you need.
Reward Yourself
When you’re working on a large goal, it’s going to take some time before you can achieve it. Since it’s going to take quite a while before you reach the finish line, it’s easy to feel demotivated. This is why in between big goals, you should have small goals to accomplish. When you complete them, celebrate these small wins.
Take note of milestones and celebrate the important ones. This will give you the motivation to work harder when working on the next small goal or milestone and the larger ones, too. It will inspire you to achieve things all year round instead of just a short period.
You can reward yourself with a treat of your choosing. It could be a cheat day from your usual healthy diet or perhaps a glass of wine to unwind after a long day’s work. For the bigger goals, it could be a week long holiday after months of hard work to achieve that major goal you had for your business.
Giving yourself something to look forward to at the end line of your goals is a great motivator that will inspire you to keep going so you can definitely crush all your goals.
Need More Help?
Should you want more help and inspiration to achieve your goals, we’d like to invite you to come along our 1-Day Business Workshop, 52 Ways. Imagine learning 52 strategies that can help you with your business goals such as achieving more by doing less.
If you want learn just how to do it, register to claim a free ticket and reserve your seat. This event will be unlike anything any business owner has attended before.
