‘Tale Means Business: 5 Tips For Planning For the New Year

I love Christmas carols and street decorations! These are the things that make me giddy about the end of the year. Everything just seems to light up, especially at night. On the other hand, as the days fly in December, something inside me reminds me that the New Year is upon us and it is time to start planning!

That’s why I decided to share my 5 important tips to plan for the new year:

Evaluation
This is my first recommended step – where you take the time to evaluate how this year has gone for you. Have your own private ‘moment of truth’ where you ask yourself questions about how the year went. This is the time when you re-visit the goals you set, especially if you wrote them down and see how well you did and if something changed during the course of the year. The idea is not to get yourself on a guilt trip or self-justification, but to objectively evaluate and find out why things worked and why the others did not. (If you run a business, you can take my free business health check HERE). Sometimes you don’t achieve your goals because they were not realistic, sometimes it is because they were means goals not end goals. For example: you set a goal to make more money and that did not happen because it was not really more money you wanted, but more freedom which you believed more money would give you. Does that make sense?

Identification
After evaluation, it is time to identify changes to be made, skills to be learnt and habits to be formed. The truth is you might need to learn a new skill by getting training or coaching to enable you make the required changes and take the required steps needed to achieve your plans for the new year. Some of these changes could even be mindset shifts or simply deciding on what needs to be done.  Identify them and keep them in mind.

Segmentation
My next tip is to divide your life into segments i.e. spiritual, financial, career or business, physical and intellectual. The idea is to have a well-rounded plan for the new year. Sometimes if you achieve growth in one area, you have a tendency to neglect another area of your life. Or you might need to give more attention to a certain area of your life that you have neglected in the past. So decide on the segments you would like to focus on the in the new year.

Documentation
The next tip is to spend time documenting what you want to achieve in each of these areas with timelines. For example: I want to lose 10kg by the end of the first quarter of 2016 (that’s just an example and not my goal by the way) Don’t just stop with what you want to achieve, write down how you plan to achieve it. Then ask yourself what might hinder you from achieving it and ways you would overcome the hindrances. This is important because you might have good plans, but you might have a lifestyle situation that would not allow you to follow through with the plans. It is important you address it now during the planning process.

Accountability
My final tip is after you have come up with your plans and decided your course of action; get someone or some people to hold you accountable. Accountability is a very important motivating factor to push you to achieve your goals because you know someone would follow up with you. Your accountability partner can be a friend or family member, but I seriously recommend a neutral party who won’t be too sentimental. I provide accountability to my coaching clients and a lot of them have achieved great strides this year because of that. You can read some of the ways I work with them HERE and read a testimonial HERE.

So as you enjoy the holidays and eat loads of goodies, remember to make plans for the New Year. Compliments of the season!