By Chris Barrett
Here’s a phrase you aren’t often thinking about at the end of April: New Year’s resolutions. These tried-and-true (and often failed and forgotten) goals represent the optimism and opportunity that comes with a new year and a fresh start. For businesses, these opportunities can be huge, and missing them—or forgetting about them entirely—can be detrimental.
So, be honest with yourself: How are your professional 2015 New Year’s resolutions going? Are you still actively working on them? Have you achieved them, or even surpassed them? Are they in the back of your mind collecting dust? Do you remember what they were?
No matter where you fall on the spectrum, they are worth revisiting, especially now—it’s still early enough in the year to tackle these goals, and some may be even more relevant now. After all, more than a quarter of the year has passed, and the realities of 2015 have started to settle in. This may help crystalize the specifics of these resolutions, and what it will take to accomplish them.
Here are four tips to help reboot your resolutions:
- Get them out in the open: Don’t keep your resolutions in your head or locked away in a filing cabinet (digital or physical). Type them out, print them out and put them somewhere you—and your team—can see them.
- Share them: Meet with your team to go over the goals regularly. Make sure everyone is aware of them, even ones that may not affect them directly, so they can help keep you and the company accountable for working to achieve them.
- Run the numbers: Take an objective look at how 2015 is going so far. Get the hard data and see how that compares to 2014 and your sales goals, and adapt your resolutions if necessary.
- Look in the mirror: Self-evaluation was probably the foundation of setting these resolutions in the first place, so it’s important to go back that place of really looking at yourself, your performance and what you can do personally to improve professionally.
Don’t wait until December to return to the idea of resolutions. There’s real merit in this clichéd activity if you can make the most of it, especially now, while the majority of 2015—and all its potential and opportunities—are still to come.