Setting Personal Objectives For The New Year
BATTLECALL GUEST EXPERT: Ray Thomsitt, Life
Coach
The end of one year and the start of another brings with it the opportunity
and inspiration, for many, to consider their personal situation and plan for the
year ahead. We all hope that we will end the New Year better off in our personal
lives than we start it. By "better off" we may mean financially, in terms of
happiness and relationships, in our careers and lifestyles; in fact, in any
aspect of our lives.
If we start the year with a positive intent on
improving our lives in some way, then there is a good chance we can succeed in
so doing. One of the ways we can help ourselves succeed is by setting personal
objectives for the year ahead. It has long been a tradition to make New Year's
resolutions, and they are an example of objective setting, usually based on a
correcting a personal weakness, such as smoking or being overweight. However,
New Year's resolutions are quite often just a bit of fun, and not taken that
seriously. Planning ahead for the full year based on a set of objectives can be
a much more beneficial way to improve yourself over the span of a
year.
New Year's resolutions, however, do give a hint at one way to go
about setting personal objectives for the year: they tend to be about addressing
weakness. If you have a personal weakness at the beginning of the year, and have
strengthened it by the end of the year, then you will have made progress. So,
when you sit down and consider what personal objectives to set yourself,
focusing on your weaknesses may be a good place to start.
How To
Go About Setting Your Personal Objectives
There is more than one
way to set about formulating personal objectives, but I will concentrate on
focusing on personal weakness. By "focusing" I do not mean just thinking about
those weakness all the time in a negative, self critical way. The purpose is to
improve yourself by the end of the year, so those weaknesses, or even just one
weakness, need to be addressed in a positive way. Ultimately, you want the
weakness you focus on to be no longer a weakness by the end of the year. Here
are a few simple steps to follow:
1. Your first step is to
identify an area, or areas, of your life where you want to make significant
improvements. As an example, let us say you have your own business,
which is quite new, and you are still finding your feet.
2. Once
you have decided on what area of your life to concentrate on first, you should
then think about it in a detached and realistic way, pen in hand, with a blank
piece of paper in front of you. Go over in your mind your experiences
since you started the business, and pinpoint what weaknesses have been exposed
since you started the business. Jot them down in a relaxed way, there is no
hurry. When you are confident you have highlighted the most critical weakness,
and have missed none, move on to considering your list.
3. You
should now go over your list of business related weaknesses, and prioritise
them. If something really stands out as being critical, then that will
be your starting point. At this stage, bear in mind that setting objectives is
not about aiming for the impossible; that is self destructive. If you have a
long list of weaknesses and it looks daunting, then the prioritisation is
especially important.
For this example, let us assume that your most
critical weakness in your new business is finance and accounting. For many
people who start a business, that is a reality, so that is quite a realistic
example. Do not expect that you will remove all weaknesses by 100% in one year;
you should be realistic, and take a staged approach. Each year you will build on
your strengths, and steadily eliminate your weaknesses. However, you cannot
expect to do it all at once.
4. Now think more about the finance
side of the business, and with a new sheet of paper write down all the things
that trouble you. Is it everything about finance and accounting? That
would not be unusual either. You may not even be able to tell a debit from a
credit, but that is not surprising. To a normal person, double entry bookkeeping
is back to front.
5. Assuming everything about finance and
accounting is a mystery to you, set out a plan to remedy that
situation. Any wise businessman needs to understand his business
finances; he will be vulnerable if he does not. There are several ways to
approach this weakness, but you will want to improve your accounting knowledge
over the year. So, as an example, you could set yourself the following
objectives for the year:
a. Learn some basic bookkeeping. You can
achieve this through a book on accounting for small businessmen, or evening
classes. If you have a local small business help bureau of any sort, they may be
able to point you in the right direction; they may even have regular
seminars.
b. Get to know your own accounting system, or maybe introduce a
simple accounting software program that will not only help you keep accurate
accounts, but teach you along the way.
c. Get to understand profit and
loss accounts so that you can start to understand how and why your business is
making a profit or a loss.
d. Learn to do cash flow forecasts, which will
always be critical to your business.
By the end of the year, you should
have a better understanding of your business finances, and when you go over the
same exercise again the following year, you can plan to go up to a higher if you
think it necessary, or address those weaknesses you have not yet
mastered.
The finance and accounting example is just one. It could also
be marketing or time management or any other aspect of the business. The
important thing for you to do is to assess the most critical weaknesses and
address them through your personal objectives. That process can be applied to
any part of your life you choose, whether related to career, family, personal
health or bad habits.
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