Are you thinking about your New Year’s resolutions yet? Do you find yourself once again promising to better manage your business’s finances or communicate better. Or maybe you’ve been promising to finally charge what you’re worth, or to market and promote your business more regularly and consistently.
If you find yourself making the same list (of resolutions) that you made last year, and the year before that, it might be time to stop and try a different approach, advises Colleen Qvist, founder of CQ Consulting, which offers life- and business coaching and workshop facilitation.
Qvist offers her New Year’s resolution prep advice to achieve all your goals in 2020:
1. Drop what’s not working and move on. Ask yourself: What patterns need to change? If you keep your old habits, chances are pretty good that you will recreate the same results next year. Even if this year was amazing, repeating the same habits may see you fail to reach the next amazing level.
2. Work on your mindset. Are you positive? Do you see opportunities in the problems or are you only focusing on the problems?
3. Make a plan. You need to reach for the stars, but work out the specific steps you need to take to get to those stars. Don’t be tempted to have a GIANT plan and fail to implement step-by-step actions to reach them.
4. Find a buddy. Find the right people [to share your goals with] and regularly meet up with them – these are people who also want to succeed (in something) and you can both commit to supporting each other. Meet to bounce ideas off each other, but also to hold each other accountable for actions you should be taking.
See also: Reinvent Yourself For Success
5. Listen and ask questions (when networking). Too often we rush out to “network” and think if we hand out 100 business cards we have done well. Rather focus on speaking and listening to three people. Listen to their stories. We do business with people we know, like and trust. Think about it: how many people will remember meeting you?
6. Consider your health and make the necessary changes. How great is your health? We are more effective in business if we are healthy. What are you putting into your body? Look at everything physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. What needs to change to ensure that you are in optimal health?
7. Be patient. Do not underestimate the difference that small changes in behaviour can make if you repeat them consistently enough. Picture this: Every day you move 1mm = 1mm in itself is nothing, but when you move another millimetre the next day, those millimetres add up. By the end of the year you will have moved 365mm (or 366 mm if it is a leap year). That is nearly 37cm.
See also: 10 New Year’s Resolutions To Improve Your Business’s Cash Flow
