Run a marathon? Eat your greens? See more of your friends? Whatever your personal New Year’s Resolutions for 2020, the chances are you may have already slipped up – 80% of us fail to keep them going by February.
Thankfully, we don’t seem to take such a relaxed attitude when setting year-long business goals. You have clear ideas regarding where you want you and your business to be by December 2020, but for many it’s hard to set and achieve goals.
So, for a fitter and healthier business, consider adopting these ideas for the rest of 2020:
| Set workable business plans
It’s easy to overestimate what you can achieve in a month – and easy to underestimate what you can achieve in a year through clever planning. Planning is everything in business, and setting clear goals for the next 11 months has many obvious benefits.
So try to make business planning a part of every single working day. You set your agenda and priorities daily – can you find half an hour in your day to make some decisions on what you need to do in the next 30 days, over the next six months, and then for the rest of the year?
You can also use this time to examine what did and didn’t work last year – and review the progress of any previous goals. Don’t beat yourself over things that didn’t work in 2019 because planning can help you determine what you can do to make sure they don’t happen again.
| Learn a new skill
Learning a new skill makes you an even greater asset to the business or team you own or manage. It also gives you some valuable time away from daily operations to get some clarity and to refocus.
Don’t think you have time? Just imagine what upskilling in a new area could do. It can help strengthen under-resourced areas, give you a better understanding of a new area of your business, and builds a learning culture in your company which your team will appreciate.
For example, you might not have a background in finance, but getting a detailed understanding of financial reporting will empower you to make better decisions on the running of your business and provide support for your numbers person.
| Get value from everything you do
We talked about the actual value of learning and training to make your business stronger in November 2019. The Icehouse’s programmes and workshops provide a wide range of professional learning opportunities, but there is a second layer of benefits you can take away.
So make 2020 your year to get as much value as possible from everything you do. Taking part in one of our programmes? Jump in deep to make yourself a key part of the group and get long-term benefits by networking with fellow participants, creating new and long-lasting contacts, and sharing new ideas which will, in turn, refine your old ones.
Got a coffee meeting? Ask yourself what you hope to achieve from this meeting? Why will it be good for your business? Is there any immediate or future benefit? Extract value whenever and wherever possible.
A new year doesn’t have to mean a new you, but it can be a platform to achieve some great things!
For more business ownership and leadership advice check out more of our blogs.