So before the strike of midnight, you silently make yourself promises as resolutions to yourself, but you know that they rarely ever work out.
During these hectic times, absolutely everyone, especially the media is rampant with recommendations of New Year resolutions, and how you should be planning them.
They’re all pretty much “cookie cutter” common on how you should be changing your life for the better in the upcoming year. They usually come in the following formats.
There’s always the fluffy inspirational feel better about yourself stuff, when mixed with a bit of champagne lulls you into a false euphoric state of hope, temporarily making you think that all of your troubles are behind you, a fresh new start will make everything alright.
Then there’s the self importance, self absorption type of resolutions which you should make since you deserve it. The crystal ball tells you what you should be doing during the upcoming year which will and should bring you prosperity and happiness.
They’ll also give you guidelines and rules, a list, on what the best resolutions in the world are, and a reason why you should be making them yourself, and that they’re guaranteed to work, making you feel better.
But the core reality is that these ideas and plans don’t work out that well. The best way to start off the New Year has nothing do with starting the latest trendy diet, improving your personal productivity, or increasing your social media presence.
What’s recommended instead of making resolutions, which will invariably fail, is making a long term plan instead. It doesn’t even matter what time of year it is when you do this planning. But having a workable plan is always a good idea, along with monthly and quarterly updates to keep it on track.
Planning For The Upcoming Year Ahead
Regardless if your an employee, or operate your own business, your plan for the upcoming year should consist of the following:
• It should have a concise and well laid out goal
• A well defined strategy on reaching that goal
• A budget to operate and carry out this plan
• Then putting the plan into action
Activating The Plan
Everything begins with sitting down and doing your homework first. Begin by standing back and looking at the complete “big” picture. The planning process should also consider competitive intelligence, upcoming market trends, and macro capital expenditure.
It’s important to have these goals as feasible and sound as possible. Ensure that these laid out strategies will likely bear fruit once they’re activated and then followed.
Know that your cash flow, expenses, profit margins, and target revenue will then more than likely be attainable, but you should also allow for a bit of wiggle room as well.
But if you already operate your own successful business, then this is nothing new or groundbreaking to you.
It Begins With Good Planning
For small business owners, the odds are good that you’ve seen this type of thing in the past, but you may have also neglected or omitted what’s involved in the process.
You may of previously winged it in the past, or just rolled the dice, and may of even got a bit lucky. If that worked out for you, then great. If it didn’t, then you might want to start with the basics and then refer to the same process annually.
Establishing Your Goals
If you’re wondering if or how this can relate to you on a personal basis, well that’s easy. Everyone regardless of what they do or plan should have a set of goals.
If you have no defined idea of where you’re going, then it’s guaranteed that you’ll never get there. You’ll never achieve anything of substance without some type of a plan, an idea about how you’re going to do something.
What you’ll also find out is that nothing is free, that everything has a “price” attached, whether it be money or time, which you need to account for and justify.
If anyone who’s ever been in debt knew a lick about basic budgeting, then they would never get in financial difficulty in the first place.
Then Execute The Plan
Beyond the level of planning, all that’s then required is executing the plan, which is entirely up to you to do. If you’re unsure on how to proceed, or if you happen to already operate a company, and all of this planning stuff is completely foreign to you, then you may need some assistance.
There are plenty of books as well as guides on the Internet which you can read, or there are plenty of business consultants who would be more than willing to help you out. The important message being make a plan before you begin.
Moving Forward
There’s no one who’s ever had a crystal ball that’s capable of predicting what will happen in the future, or the upcoming year. But there is one thing that’s for certain, and that’s if you fail to plan your life, or your business, it will never work out like you want it to.
So forgot about the annual resolutions which are usually forgotten about in a few weeks, but instead develop a doable sensible plan by setting goals, along with a timetable which you can execute them.