It’s tradition. With all the best intentions, you made resolutions for 2020. Maybe it was personal, to lose weight, quit smoking, work out more, or spend more time with your family. It’s also a great time to refocus on your business, resolving to boost your net profits, save more cash on hand, or hire a new employee.
It’s also traditional that those well-meaning resolutions don’t stick. Most never take hold. It’s possible some of those promises have already been broken, in just six short days. In fact, according to recent studies, about 64 percent of resolutions don’t last past the end of January.
So if you’re still hanging on, or you need to get back on track, there are ways to help you succeed and beat the statistics.
It’s All About You
The first thing to do is to make it personal. Any lasting change you make must come from inside — not from external forces like your spouse or business partner. Making a life or professional change will only work if you are self-motivated. But that doesn’t mean you have to do this in a vacuum. Enlisting others in keeping you accountable can help you stick to your goals.
Get SMART
Our Roundtables members are well acquainted with SMART goals. It’s a system of creating goals that works well in business, and can be just as effective when tackling more personal projects. There are a couple different meanings for the acronym, but for sticking to your New Year’s resolutions, remember these terms:
- Specific. Set your goal so that it’s clear, concise, and concrete. That’s pounds lost, say, rather than just “losing weight.” Or you’ll have a clear job description written for a new hire by Feb.1.
- Measurable. That’s the beauty of the specific goal — you build the measurement in.
- Achievable. Set a goal you can meet, don’t go for pie in the sky.
- Realistic. It’s a goal that’s within reach, even while doing everything else in your busy life. If you’re starting from zero, saying you’ll go to the gym every day before or after work is just not going to happen for that long.
- Timely. Set deadlines for incremental and total progress.
Break down your goals into smaller steps. Celebrate your small victories and don’t dwell on a backslide. Keep at it, consistently. Once you’ve changed your mindset, established momentum, and created healthy habits, reaching your goal will get easier.
And if your resolution in 2020 is to improve your remodeling business…
No better way to get a jump on the new year than attending the Extreme Business Makeover event in Baltimore on January 28-29. Two days of interactive, thought-provoking presentations, break-outs and panel discussions with some of the remodeling industry’s best and brightest.
Click here to register >>