By Chris Christoff, co-founder of MonsterInsights
It’s about time for New Year’s resolutions to start popping up again. As 2018 comes to a close, how many of your resolutions did you complete from the start of the year?
If your answer is “not many” or “none,” perhaps it’s time to start thinking about how you can reach your business and personal goals in 2019. Believe it or not, there are plenty of tactics you can use to make your dreams come true.
Here are some of the ways you can change your mindset, get better results and make sure that this time next year, you can proudly say you completed a majority — if not all — of your goals for 2019.
Break big goals into smaller tasks
One of the biggest issues people run into when they set goals is thinking about the big picture and how great everything is going to be once they’re done. The problem is that big goals often require multiple steps.
Take some time and think about the smaller steps required to accomplish your 2019 resolutions. If your goal is to have a profitable business website with tens of thousands of unique visitors a month, and you don’t even have a website, you have quite a way to go.
Instead of thinking about the big picture, break it down into smaller, more manageable goals. You could turn your goal of creating a successful business website into a short to-do list:
• Create a website
• Develop a minimum of four new products
• Create a marketing plan
• Establish social media accounts
If you put these smaller goals together, you’re on the path to a profitable website. Even if you don’t become as successful as you’d hoped this year, you’re still one step closer to your goal than if you just make the promise, get overwhelmed and quit.
Set deadlines
Deadlines are another way you can get one step closer to achieving your goals. When you set deadlines, you’re measuring out your time and making it easier to track your progress
When you don’t set deadlines, you put yourself in a state of crunch. Think about the last time you had a workweek when you had to put in 60 hours to get something done. You may have felt stressed, short-tempered and irrational.
Deadlines allow you to establish a flow of progress so you’re not caught at the end rushing through everything you hope to accomplish. If you rush, there’s a good chance that the final outcome will not look at great as you envisioned.
Talk about your goals
Whether you’re talking about personal or business goals, communicating your desire helps increase the chances of success. When you talk about your personal goals to friends and family, they can give you the support you need to make sure you accomplish them. They’ll know that at certain times, you’re going to be working on your tasks and that you may not be available to them.
In a business setting, talking about your goals is even more important. Your employees need to know your goals for the company. If you set the standards and tell them what you want to achieve, they can work more efficiently and help the company grow and develop in exciting ways.
Reassess your goals
Sometimes you have to stop and reassess your goals throughout the year. Things change over time. Maybe your company’s email marketing is doing better than you expected, so you don’t have to develop it further yet. On the other hand, maybe you have to reevaluate your social media ads because the ones you put out aren’t working as well as you’d hoped. If that’s the case, stop, reassess your goals and establish new deadlines.
Avoid procrastination — start now
“I’ll start tomorrow” can be one of the worst mindsets to have. When you establish your goals for the year, it’s important to start right away. Start thinking about the things you want and how you’re going to get there. Procrastination can kill ideas. It’s the enemy of success and growth.
Now that you know how to reach your 2019 goals, the only thing left to do is to get started. You can do almost anything you put your mind to if you’re willing to break your big goals into smaller tasks, set deadlines, talk about your goals with others, reassess when the time comes and start now.
Chris Christoff is the co-founder of MonsterInsights, the leading WordPress plugin for Google Analytics.
