As an entrepreneur, the new year brings a perfect opportunity to take stock of what you achieved in 2022, reset your efforts and set some new goals. But don’t overdo it. The more goals you aim for, the less you will achieve in the law of diminishing returns! Just as a business will set 3-5 KPIs for its strategy, you might aim to just set three key goals for the year ahead, and then adopt a laser-like focus to achieving them!
Here are three that will bring benefits to any entrepreneur, whatever their industry:
Get better at documenting your plans
All too often, we have passing thoughts, grand ideas or interesting concepts – but we fail to document them. Writing down goals is important because it stimulates the brain in a different way. Research also shows that people who write down their goals and who bring them to life visually with images are up to 1.4 times more likely to achieve them than those who don’t.
So write your goals – in handwriting – add images – and place your written goals somewhere you’ll see them each day. You can type your detailed delivery plan if you prefer and manage it as you would any project – with clear, actionable steps for your progress and achievement.
Focus on the finance
Entrepreneurs need to be financially savvy in two areas; their business, and their personal lives. If you don’t yet feel confident in managing finance, this is the year to learn everything about it. Discover what is available to you as a business owner, learn to understand areas such as tax, lending and credit.
Always find new opportunities to learn
The great skill of the successful entrepreneur is to always be learning. So always look for opportunities to learn new things, take on fresh information and challenge your thinking. Meet new people, network, ask for opinions from people with expertise, attend training courses in person, watch training videos, keep up to date with the latest trends… however you prefer to learn, really commit to broadening your horizons as much as possible. Learning is the ultimate investment in your success.
How to make your resolutions stick
Research shows that half of all people that make a new year’s resolution will fail to make them stick for even a week. So, improve your chances by employing a structured approach, whether that’s the SMART structure for goal-planning (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) or the ‘1% rule’, where you work in tiny, sustainable and incremental steps each day to embed long term changes.
Remember to reward yourself too, so that your brain associates your hard work with meaningful gains.
Which resolutions will you be setting in 2023?
