Keeping A New Year’s Resolution

Another year has gone by and it is time to reflect on the past metrics and plan for the future. Although you can set resolutions and updates to your business and life strategy at any time, the turn of the year is the time when society comes together to celebrate, evaluate and set new individual and common goals. You are often invited to rethink your goals during this time of the year by friends, coworkers, and the like. Setting the right goals or adjusting your existing strategy is important. Keeping New Year’s resolutions involves tracking your milestones, sharing your achievements and rewarding yourself for successes. When you set goals, be honest with yourself, be methodical, and success will come.

Keeping A New Year’s Resolution: Set specific and realistic goals

Your goals start with a need. It may be the need to lose weight so that you feel better and are healthier. It may be the need to get more clients, because your business’s growth is important to you. In order to meet these needs, you need to set goals that are achievable with the tools that you have at hand. Your goals have to be measurable and have to stem from what you have already built in your personal or professional world. This way, you will have a clear idea of how to achieve them and you will know they are achievable. The measurement and evidence of your progress will motivate you to continue to work toward them. If your goals are vague or exaggerated, it will be hard for you to quantify them and plan the first steps you need to take to achieve them.

Keeping A New Year’s Resolution: Break it down into steps

Your goals start with a need. It may be the need to lose weight so that you feel better and are healthier. It may be the need to get more clients because your business’s growth is important to you. In order to meet these needs, you need to set goals that are achievable with the tools that you have at hand. Your goals have to be measurable and have to stem from what you have already built in your personal or professional world. This way, you will have a clear idea of how to achieve them and you will know they are achievable. When it comes to keeping New Year’s resolutions, the measurement and evidence of your progress will motivate you to continue to work toward them. If your goals are vague or exaggerated, it will be hard for you to quantify them and plan the first steps you need to take to achieve them.

Keeping A New Year’s Resolution: Keep track of progress

It is important to measure everything. From the time you invest in your new agenda, to the time people spend on each page of your blog. Create a spreadsheet or a series of linked spreadsheets if your task is complex. Evaluate your progress after each tweak of your strategy. This way, you will know the efficiency of this specific change. After each improved practice or added channel, analyze your reach and create a table with the top ten best performing posts. Why did they perform best? Which marketing channels brought readers to them? This information will empower your future efforts and make them more efficient, setting you on the right path to achieving your goal. It’s the same with dieting, you note what works and implement it in the next cycle.

Keeping A New Year’s Resolution: Share your achievements

In order to better understand your progress and motivate yourself, share your new practices and the results they have brought with your team, friends, and family. Explaining the mechanics of your work in progress will give you a better understanding of it. When your circle comments or criticizes your practices, you are bound to get new perspectives that you might not have had, which can lead to improvements and ideas. The gratification will also motivate you to keep working hard toward keeping New Year’s resolutions or your next milestone.  Also, by surrounding yourself with like minded individuals, you will be encouraged to succeed.

Keeping A New Year’s Resolution: Celebrate milestones

It is important to reward yourself when you meet your quarterly goals. This will keep you motivated and will justify the hard work you are putting in, building up to your ultimate resolution. Starting a new agenda takes up time and requires a great deal of diligence and discipline, and celebrating your milestones along the way keeps you in good spirits and gives you time to reflect and continue confidently ahead.