Another year dawns… and we go through the time-honored (but not people-honored) tradition of setting New Year’s resolutions. We set them with the best of intentions, yet forget them and quickly fail. You can either continue with what you tried last year (did it work?) or make some changes. This year make your resolutions on Mercury time.
Make this year different. This year, instill revolutionary change:
- Be selective and intentional – not all goals are created equal. Choose fewer goals. Choose the right goals, those that will matter in your life and your business. Lose 20 pounds? Or exercise 20 minutes daily? Grow revenue 25% annually? Or close one new deal each week?
- Set goals continuously – one of the jobs of a leader is to ensure the goals are appropriate as the environment changes. To do this effectively one cannot wait until next quarter or next year to assess the goals. Has your team met the challenge to close a new deal a week? Set the bar higher. Don’t wait for the earth to circle the sun again. Do it now. Too hard? Then at least consider setting goals as Mercury circles the sun (every 88 days).
- Track results with a vengeance – where are we? Assuming you’ve set the right goals, ensure that progress towards meeting them is known, published publicly and discussed in the hallways. I once worked for a company that launched a company-wide initiative but failed to report results to employees for over 9 months. The result? People assumed the initiative was tabled, unimportant, or worse.
- Celebrate often –People appreciate knowing that you noticed a goal was met. If we fail to celebrate or acknowledge we miss one of the simplest ways to build momentum to accomplish more each day. (Author’s confession: an area for personal development.)
The pivot point is to set fewer goals that have more meaning and to focus on them relentlessly. If we set our aspirations on the basis of the earth’s path around the sun, we would be better suited to becoming farmers than business people.
