I know It’s hard to believe, but it’s time to start thinking about your goals for next year. I get it. You’re busy, but this is really important! How’d you do this year? Have you surpassed your expectations? Have you fallen short? Or did you meet all your goals? If you met all your goals and/or exceeded your expectations, then congratulations! Great job! But, if you didn’t have a problem reaching all your goals, maybe you didn’t set them high enough? What do you think? On the other-hand if you’ve worked really hard, but still didn’t reach all your goals, congratulations, because you stretched yourself!
Setting goals can be a tricky business. If you set your goals too high and you don’t reach them you’ll be disappointed and think you’re a failure, but if you set your goals too low, you aren’t stretching yourself. You’re settling for mediocrity.
For starters, take the word failure out of your vocabulary! When things don’t go as planned you need to look at why and learn the lesson, so you don’t repeat it again and again. Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and over again and expecting different results. If you don’t examine what happened and make plans to not let it happen again, it will be déjà vu all over again!
Now let’s look at what you’ve accomplished this year. Where did you start out and where did you end up? Did you make significant gains? Did you accomplish more than you thought? Did you do as much as you could have? Are you excited about what you’ve accomplished?
Answer those questions honestly. How are you spending your time? Are there things that you could have done better or more of that would have helped you? Are you doing everything you can to promote your business or are you lacking in some areas? Do you need to delegate?
Did you know that hiring a virtual assistant for only one day a month can free up time for you to handle the things that only you can do? There are people who can write blogs for you, do your books, handle your social media posts, even help you plan your goals and hold you accountable. You don’t have to do it all, or go it alone and it doesn’t need to break the bank either. Instead of thinking in terms of money, think in terms of what your time is worth. When you waste time doing things that someone else can do, and maybe even better than you, you’re basically throwing money away.
The easiest way I have found to set goals is to work backwards. What do you want to accomplish by this time next year? Once you have your main goals, determine what you need to do to achieve them. Prioritize and do the most important things first. Every day you should be doing something that moves you toward your goal. A good rule of thumb is to plan to do three to five of the really important things every day. Start with the most important first thing in the morning, that way if your day gets derailed you’ll feel like you accomplished something, which of course you did.
Find someone to hold you accountable. It’s much easier to reach your goals when you have someone encouraging and motivating you. Make sure you prioritize and don’t waste your time on things that someone else can do for you.
I know that with the holidays this is a crazy time of year, but it’s very important to set aside time to look at 2016 and start planning for 2017. If you don’t set goals you won’t know where you’re going, so you’ll never get there!
Setting goals can be a tricky business. If you set your goals too high and you don’t reach them you’ll be disappointed and think you’re a failure, but if you set your goals too low, you aren’t stretching yourself. You’re settling for mediocrity.
For starters, take the word failure out of your vocabulary! When things don’t go as planned you need to look at why and learn the lesson, so you don’t repeat it again and again. Einstein said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and over again and expecting different results. If you don’t examine what happened and make plans to not let it happen again, it will be déjà vu all over again!
Now let’s look at what you’ve accomplished this year. Where did you start out and where did you end up? Did you make significant gains? Did you accomplish more than you thought? Did you do as much as you could have? Are you excited about what you’ve accomplished?
Answer those questions honestly. How are you spending your time? Are there things that you could have done better or more of that would have helped you? Are you doing everything you can to promote your business or are you lacking in some areas? Do you need to delegate?
Did you know that hiring a virtual assistant for only one day a month can free up time for you to handle the things that only you can do? There are people who can write blogs for you, do your books, handle your social media posts, even help you plan your goals and hold you accountable. You don’t have to do it all, or go it alone and it doesn’t need to break the bank either. Instead of thinking in terms of money, think in terms of what your time is worth. When you waste time doing things that someone else can do, and maybe even better than you, you’re basically throwing money away.
The easiest way I have found to set goals is to work backwards. What do you want to accomplish by this time next year? Once you have your main goals, determine what you need to do to achieve them. Prioritize and do the most important things first. Every day you should be doing something that moves you toward your goal. A good rule of thumb is to plan to do three to five of the really important things every day. Start with the most important first thing in the morning, that way if your day gets derailed you’ll feel like you accomplished something, which of course you did.
Find someone to hold you accountable. It’s much easier to reach your goals when you have someone encouraging and motivating you. Make sure you prioritize and don’t waste your time on things that someone else can do for you.
I know that with the holidays this is a crazy time of year, but it’s very important to set aside time to look at 2016 and start planning for 2017. If you don’t set goals you won’t know where you’re going, so you’ll never get there!