So it’s January 30th and you’ve probably eaten a lot of the fried food that you swore you wouldn’t and/or spent way more time on Facebook than you promised you would. No one’s judging, especially not me. But it’s never too late to pull yourself up by your proverbial boot straps and get back to upholding that New Year’s Resolution. If you’re in the process of building a brand/business like myself, you should have made a business resolution too. Oh, you didn’t? Again, not too late, let’s get started.

Step 1: Think about how 2018 went…

Sit back and get reflective about last year. Here’s a short list of questions to ask yourself to get you started down memory lane:

What went well? What didn’t?
Did you do everything you planned to?
Did you grow in any way? How?
Who were your top customers? How’d you get them?
What products/services sold the best?

Step 2: Decide what you want to achieve…

Goals are important guys. Get specific, be realistic, and WRITE THEM DOWN.

Examples:

Increase social media following by 2x each quarter.
Gain 200 new repeat customers this year.
Send at least two marketing emails each month.
Start a blog.
Launch two new products.

It’s probably a good idea to set more than one goal and to have a mix between long and short term goals. Also, don’t forget to have a timeline for completing each goal and/or the smaller steps to achieving them.

Step 3: Prioritize your goals…

You’ll never be able to get through your list of goals if you don’t rank them accordingly. This prioritization isn’t just about what will make you the most money either. Decide what YOU want to do, how will YOU define success?

Step 4: Create your resolution…

Look at your list of goals and come up with an overarching resolution that fits what you want to accomplish in 2019. Keep it short but make it strong. Again, this is a high level resolution, your goals will fall underneath it.

A great resolution:

“Build my business’ online community and sales through consistent, relevant, and engaging content”

Step 5: Keep this resolution in mind in EVERYTHING you do…

Now that you’ve got a resolution and goals for the year, make sure every time you do ANYTHING, you’re keeping them in mind. Every activity should be in some way a step toward achieving one of your goals for the year. If it’s not, it’s probably good to re-evaluate what you’re doing and why.

Okay, enough thinking about it. Time to do it. Whether you prefer a laptop, a planner, a notebook, or even a posterboard, make sure you’re recording your goals, resolution, and your plan for achieving the success you keep dreaming and talking about.