Setting goals for the new year is a fairly typical practice. A new year is a new chapter, a chance to start fresh and place some positive targets out there that you want to hit. Maybe you want to grow your landscape business to a certain level or add a new service or streamline your systems. Landscape professionals who set goals can certainly end the year with better businesses if they achieve them.
Some popular small business resolutions include joining a new local business organization or networking group, starting a blog (and updating it regularly), learning to delegate more, implementing a social media marketing plan, ensuring your website content is up-to-date, and putting time for yourself on the calendar (achieve some work/life balance).
However, while we all start the year with the best intentions, only 12 percent of us will actually be victorious in meeting our New Year’s resolutions. That equates to about 156 million people who set goals and then give up or don’t succeed, according to Lifehack.
What’s the problem? Let’s take a look at the 5 common reasons we don’t meet our New Year’s resolutions and how we can learn to set goals for ourselves that are achievable so we can all be victorious by the end of this year.
You Set Goals That Are Too Big
In today’s society, everyone wants things to happen fast. We want it all and we want it now.
But that’s just not realistic. A big goal—like reaching $1 million in revenue—cannot likely happen in one year’s time. Instead, you need you break up your big goal into smaller, less intimidating tasks that are achievable.
Depending on where you’re at as a landscape business, maybe this means setting targets each year that are in line with average growth percentages, like 2 to 5 percent, and that becomes your target. Or maybe adding a new service is your goal and those additional customers will begin to get you closer to your ultimate, larger revenue goal.
Talk to other landscape professionals who have reached $1 million in revenue and find out what steps they took to get there. Notice the small victories they achieved along the way and try and look at your business in the same way.
Too Much Talk, Not Enough Action
Being motivated is a great experience. It’s amazing to listen to a business expert speak at an event and feel rejuvenated to take the tips you heard back to your business and implement them.
All too often, those tips end up in a notebook or tucked away in a desk drawer or on a shelf. And they never see light again. You get back to your business and start putting out fires again and forget all about what you were motivated to change.
Many goal setters don’t determine how they’ll reach a goal. Seeking inspiration and knowledge is an excellent practice, such as attending NALP’s Leaders Forum this month. However, you must take one thing you learn from each book you read or session you attend and put it into practice. Figure out a step-by-step process on how you’ll simplify your goal so it’s possible. Goals don’t have to be large; above all, little changes can make large impacts on your overall business.
The point is you must act in order to see results.
You Lack Confidence in Yourself and Your Abilities
If your list of goals is a mile long and covers everything under the sun, no wonder you feel exhausted and that you don’t know where to begin. Trying to do it all at once can burst your goal bubble. As a result, you stop before you even have a chance to start. Or maybe you’ve set similar goals in the past and failed. Feeling insecure is no way to start accomplishing goals.
Doubt will always be that nagging voice in your head. Believing in yourself is the only way to defeat doubt. Failure in the past doesn’t dictate your future. You can always try tackling that goal again, but this time succeed.
You’re Waiting for Motivation to Strike
Have you ever been in the middle of a long run and you started letting your lack of motivation and energy almost stop you from running? But then you keep running, fighting through that sluggish feeling, and you’re glad you did?
Motivation is a temporary feeling. It might get you started some days and it might be nonexistant on other days. However, discipline and commitment to the process are what really help you accomplish your goals.
Popular research says it takes 21 days to form a new habit. However, a more recent European Journal of Social Psychology study found it took an average of 66 days to change a behavior. Time actually varied from as little as 18 days all the way up to 254 days. You have to put the time in to achieve any goal. Some days will be smooth and others will be challenging. That’s what makes reaching your goal so rewarding in the end; you conquered the ups and downs and triumphed.
You Never Get Started
Commitment is key to achieving any goal.
Treat each day separately and do one thing that day toward achieving your goal. Don’t worry about it not working out or not being perfect.
Celebrate small victories along the way. This will “train your subconscious brain to program you for continued success,” says Julie Christopher, CEO of Biztuition. “Your one new daily habit … will become a consistent part of your life, like brushing your teeth.
“The reason you are an entrepreneur is that you are far from average,” Christopher continues. As a result, you are used to taking educated risks. “You rise up daily, make life-changing decisions, and you hopefully perform better every day by overcoming challenges and solving problems. You can do this.”
