Start the Year On The Right Foot For Your Business
A new year invariably brings a sense of anticipation for accomplishing tasks. For business owners, it’s the perfect time for introspection and thoughtful consideration of our goals for the upcoming 365 days. This blog talks about how to start the year on the right foot for your business.
On this note, let me tell you a story about this…
Once, there was a strong woodcutter who didn’t have a job.
He decided to ask for a job as a timber merchant, and he got it.
The job paid well, and he was determined to outdo himself. His boss gave him an axe and told him to get started.
On the first day, the woodcutter felled 18 trees.
His boss was thrilled at the hard work!
“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”
The woodcutter was motivated. The next day, he tried to beat his record.
He only managed 15 trees. And the third day, he tried even harder but only managed 10 trees.
Every day he was doing fewer trees, and he was disappointed in himself..
“I must be losing my strength,” the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologised, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.
“Sharpen? I’ve had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been so busy trying to cut trees….”
Lessons To Be Learnt
Sharpening the axe will save you energy and time. It will also make your job much more polished.
In the Seven Habits of Effective People, Steve Covey discusses the importance of sharpening the axe.
He dives into preserving and enhancing our greatest assets. He mentions that you are the greatest asset you have.
The whole idea stems from this quote by Abraham Lincoln – “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
It highlights the value of strategic planning, skill development, and readiness before embarking on any goal or project.
As we move into 2024, it’s become clearer than ever that to succeed, you have to first sharpen the axe.
This is about renewing the four dimensions of your nature – physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional.
Taking the time to sharpen the “tools” or skills needed for a task is an investment that can lead to better outcomes and smoother execution when the actual work begins.
How Are You Sharpening Your Axe for 2023?
The last few days of the year are a great time for reflecting on our lives. This year, I’m sharing a couple of resources which I think you’d find very useful.
Here are the 5 ways to sharpen your axe and start your year on the right foot:
- Reflect and Review
- Write a Letter to Future You
- Plan Well
- The Year Compass
- Make a Vision Board
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Reflect and Review
I speak about reflection a lot of times, and that’s because, to me, you can’t move forward if you don’t take time to analyse your past failures, successes, and reasons behind each of these.
Looking back helps you to glean really valuable insights from these successes and setbacks, giving you a much better understanding of what strategies are the most effective.
As Hall and Simeral said once, “The more reflective you are, the more effective you are?”
So what are the best ways to reflect as a business owner?
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SWOT Analysis
The SWOT analysis is one of the most praised ways of doing a full overview of your business and for a good reason.
As the abbreviation suggests, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
It helps you to not only identify but also internalise different aspects of your business. You can, then, easily, craft a successful strategy for the business.
Your company can easily point out the areas that can take the business to the next level, and start drafting out a follow-through plan.
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Customer Feedback Analysis
I can’t emphasize the importance of listening to your customers. Customer feedback is one of the most invaluable pieces of information you could ever get in business.
It’s also the perfect way to gain credible information on ways to improve your business.
You can do this through surveys, feedback forms, customer interviews and analysing your Google Reviews.
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Goal Evaluation
What goals did you set for your business last year? And how many of them did you manage to achieve?
Why did you or didn’t you achieve the goals that you set out to? How many of these are worth carrying forward to the next year?
Evaluating your goals is a tangible way to assess your progress. Doing this simple exercise will leave you feeling motivated to build the momentum you need for success in 2024.
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Write a Letter to Future You
Where do you see yourself at the end of 2024?
If you’re a business owner, I suppose the answers to this will look something like this:
- Making X amount of money per month
- Taking X number of holidays every year
- Employed X amount of people to work for me
I’ve spoken about manifestation here a couple of times. It’s no secret. I’m a big believer.
So you can only imagine my joy when I found out about the concept of writing to your future self.
What do you say in the letter? Anything. Everything.
Don’t be afraid to dream big. Include everything you need to achieve your goals. Write your loftiest aspirations and even smaller wins.
Write as though it has already happened, describing clearly how they came to fruition.
You can either write a physical letter, or use websites like Futureme.org or The self club. If you choose the latter, you can pick the exact date when you want the letter delivered to your email inbox.
Here are two reasons why I highly recommend this process:
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Perspective
Writing a letter to your future self gives you perspective on your current situation.
It’s quite similar to journaling. You pour your heart out on the page and in the process, you can clearly understand your feelings about your business.
Even if things don’t pan out as you imagined, I can guarantee that you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you learn about yourself in the process.
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Visualisation
Visualisation is a big part of manifestation, and when you write a letter to your future self, you are essentially picturing yourself and your business in the future.
If nothing else, you will feel a sense of motivation to chase after your goals.
3. Plan Well
Planning is an undeniably powerful tool.
For every minute you spend doing it, you’ll save at least 10 minutes in implementation.
While planning won’t guarantee a result, it will give you clarity and focus, arguably the 2 single most important determinants between success and failure.
Here are some of the things you could do to ensure that you are planning the right way.
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The 12-Week Year
At Outside ideas, we’re heavy believers in the ‘12 week year.’
We do our planning every quarter of the year. We break down SMART goals, and what is needed to do each year to achieve these goals.
Between that, we check on our KPIs, and at the end of each week, we measure and refocus.
We’ve found that planning four times a year and evaluating progress weekly is the perfect balance to create, evaluate, and implement our strategies to ensure success.
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Prioritisation
Sometimes, planning opens up Pandora’s box in that you end up with a list of lots of items which you essentially can’t manage.
This can make you feel overwhelmed, and you end up doing things quickly for the sake of finishing them.
Make sure that when you are planning, you don’t bite off more than you can chew. Otherwise, the goal just becomes unattainable, which is, of course, not a SMART goal.
4. The Year Compass
Writing takes manifestation to the next level.
And that’s why The Year Compass seems like a magic trick to me.
It’s an online booklet that allows you to reflect on the previous year and plan for the next one.
It has well-thought-out questions and exercises that help you uncover your patterns.
It also allows you to see the tangible changes that you need to make in your life to succeed.
You can fill it in either online or physically.
If ‘New Year, New Me’ doesn’t work for you, then this definitely will. Because rather than a set of dos and don’ts, The Year Compass gives you a chance to meditate and be practical about it.
You can even use it as a manifestation guide where you get to visualise exactly what you want in the coming year.
Here are 2 reasons why I’m a RAVING FAN of The Year Compass:
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It Works!
People from all over the world sing praises about The Year Compass and for a very good reason. I have seen the most ambitious dreams come true!
Filling this book takes hours, if not days, But it’s completely worth it at the end of the day, I can guarantee you that!
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You Gain Clarity
The Year Compass is the perfect opportunity to set everything aside and put all your energy into understanding how your year went. It is, in itself a reflection tool.
It contains two sections: First, you reflect on your past year and then you plan for the coming year.
5. Make a Vision Board
Have you watched the documentary or read the book called The Secret?
If you haven’t, then I highly recommend that you do!
The film has real-life examples of ways that the vision board works.
For example, a man, many years after making his board, discovers that he is living in the exact house that he had put on it.
I’ve seen it happen to others, and I’ve seen it happen to me.
A classic example is the fact that I won the Networker of the Year Award, which I had pinned on my vision board for four years! A year later, in 2023, I won the Business Hero of the Year Award!
So as you prepare to start your new year, making a new vision board should be among your top priorities.
How much money do you want in your account? What kind of relationships do you want to have? Where do you want to travel?
You can literally put anything on there! Don’t be afraid to dream big. As they say in The Secret, the hows are in the domains of the universe.
Here are my top two tips when it comes to making a vision board:
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Trust Your Gut
Here’s a life-changing excerpt I once came across that changed my life:
“Trust your gut, and do not be afraid to reach out for something new. Even if things don’t turn out as you had imagined, you will have tried. You will have learned, and you will never have to live with regret. It seems to me what tears us down the most in life are not the things we do but the things we don’t do. The dreams we push aside and the adventures we put off. So whatever you want in life, trust your gut!”
When it comes to a vision board, your dreams are all valid! Don’t be scared to dream big.
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Keep It In Sight
Your vision board needs to be in sight. It serves as a constant reminder of what you’re working towards.
You have to put it in a place that you access at least every single day. The whole idea around a vision board is merging visualisation with effort to achieve your goals.
I’ve seen people who make their vision boards their wallpaper on both phones and laptops. Others choose to pin it up on a wall.
Whatever you decide, it needs to be something you are constantly seeing.
Summary
If you want to change your life, you have to make the decision to change your life. And if you want to see success in 2023, the time to start your year well is now.
New Year, New me seems like a very strong commitment to make. And it’s no wonder many of us fall short by the end of the first month.
But if you take the time to plan, understand why you want to change, then it becomes much easier. It has to start from you.
Here are the 5 ways to start your year on the right foot
- Reflect and Review
- Write a Letter to Future You
- Plan Well
- The Year Compass
- Make a Vision Board
As we go into 2024, make a power move by joining a mastermind group! If you’re interested in a conversation to find out whether we are the right match for you and your business, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Onwards and upwards my friend,
Pete.
