01/14/2024
Do you make New Year's Resolutions? If so, personal ones, business ones, or both?
Whether you want to focus on your health, your family, your finances, or your spirituality, you probably have resolutions you have made. Things like:
💠 Save $100 a month
💠 Quit eating junk food
💠 Put down my phone and focus on my kids
💠 Increase my yearly business revenue by 25%
What if, instead, you focused on SMART goals? A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Reframe those ideas above to:
💠 Save $1200 by the end of 2024. Do this by saving $100 each month. In order to meet that goal, I will only eat out for lunch on Fridays, and bring my lunch to the office every other day of the week.
💠 Develop a healthier lifestyle. To do this, I want to limit junk food, but I don't want to starve or deprive myself. So I will focus on not snacking at my desk, or I will replace my salty chips with carrot sticks instead. I will measure this by how I feel, how well my clothes fit, and hopefully I'll also see my cholesterol numbers improve.
💠 I want to be more present for my family. I know I spend too much time on my phone. From now on, I will place my phone on the charger in my bedroom between the time I get home, and 8:30pm. I'm allowed to answer calls if I want, but I won't play games or surf social media until I've dedicated a block of time to my family. I can measure this by checking my phone's screen time usage once a week.
💠 I want to increase my earnings by 25% this year. To do that, I will research new income streams during the month of January, with the plan to implement at least one of them starting in February. Each month, I will measure, evaluate, and pivot as needed. I will keep a spreadsheet of my earnings from last year and this year, so I can compare them to make sure I'm staying on track.
Resolutions sometimes feel limiting. Goals, with an actionable plan, help you remember why you're making changes and how you can actually achieve them.
