Set yourself up for a successful 2017! Grab these actionable ideas for you.
Set ambitious goals that you aspire to achieve and are excited and a little bit scared about. You need to feel slightly scared about how ambitious your goals are, so that you feel goose bumps from the excitement. This will keep you excited and focused, since you have made an agreement with yourself to deliver.
- Set your goals in relation to your personal brand. Goals that are based on your personal brand are easier to achieve. It will come naturally and congruently to yourself to achieve them. Imagine either focusing on something that others think is important but you do not really agree with or focusing on something that you are truly passionate about. You see the difference, don’t you?
- Challenge yourself – how can you go higher, more impactful, and wider in your goals? When you have written or mapped out your goals, take a moment to reflect and challenge yourself – how can you be more impactful, aim higher, be better? You do want to create feeling of excitement and inspiration in you, don’t you?
- Test yourself – do you feel slightly scared of how big your goals are? You need to feel slightly scared and wondering – can I really do this? It will push you higher, energize you more and ensure you keep going to reach your achievement. Of course, do not exaggerate and scare yourself off totally – you know what I mean.
Define KPIs for your goals to ensure measurement and opportunity to celebrate success
- What gets measured, that gets done – it is essential that you set measurable KPIs for your goals, so you can track your record of achieving them. Sometimes you might think – I do not know, what’ s the market practice or what’s the overall average % or ratio or number to the growth target, as an example, for increasing your connections in social networks. Knowing the market practice is good homework, but you do need to define your own approach, in relation to where you are now.
- Measure in numbers, time, impact, change and feedback. We often think about the numbers when we are defining KPI’s, like – what is the income that you are aiming for in 2017 or how many holiday trips you plan to have. Set your KPIs for the other areas that are essential for you as well – for example, what is the impact you want to make in your target audience and by what time, how do you want people’s mindset to be challenged by your message, how do you want the feedback that you receive from your work to change etc. I pay special attention to impact KPI’s – the impact of my work to my clients success is essential to me.
- Celebrate success – starting from small successes and achievements will bring you to bigger ones. When you track your results, you have the tangible outcome for celebrating the success. Do celebrate – you have done well and deserve a thank you to yourself. This helps to focus your mindset to keep succeeding and strengthens your confidence in yourself and your delivered value. As an example, I started this year a Success & Excitement Jar – every day I capture on a post-it size note one thing that I succeeded or that I got excited about that day. This will help you in the low moments by reading some of your notes to keep your inspiration flame going and to reflect at the year end upon your success journey.
Ensure your environment & tools that are essential for you to succeed and will help you to deliver with excellence. Think about – what do you need to help yourself be more efficient, impactful, and personally excellent.
- Post it reminder – write 1 key thing for the week on a post-it note and stick it on the wall in front of you. This is one thing that keeps my weekly focus and helps with the clarity – what is one essential thing to achieve this week? I keep it on the wall in front of me as a kind focus reminder. Write it on a post-it, its easy to stick on the wall next to you and change weekly.
- Your top 3 messages that you stand for and deliver – this is another thing to keep close to you every day to ensure you keep focus on your passion and deliver outcomes in the area of your expertise that you are truly passionate about. This will also help with your thought leadership in social media.
- Get your essential tools. Review what you need to be more efficient and effective, deliver better quality services and outcomes for your clients and get the tools to help you deliver. As an example, I’m really excited about this – I have one key tools for this year as my awesome Christmas present for myself. It’s a microphone for recording online courses so I can ensure the best sound quality possible. My first course is being recorded in January, so I decided to get this essential tool for myself as a Christmas present.
Choose like-minded people and groups to discover new approaches, share your journey and keep connected. You can not underestimate the impact of like-minded people, networking and interest groups – in social media and in person!
- Connect and invest time in meeting like-minded people who are on a similar journey as you are. Having conversations with them will help you keep focused, share experience, get a sparkle of inspiration by finding out about their success and sharing yours. It is a way to build your brand as well.
- Join interest groups in social media (FB, LinkedIn etc) that are relevant to your passion and focus and contribute to the conversations. You will keep building your credibility and visibility and will learn loads of information, trust me.
- Attend events and conferences and connect with people there, follow up with coffee or conversation to stay connected and keep evolving. My experience shows, that first – you get loads of new ideas and inspiration from learning together in an event or conference and second, you keep learning after the event or conference by staying connected.
These are my top tips for setting yourself up for a successful 2017.
Take action and enjoy succeeding!