10 New Year’s resolutions to improve your business and your life

As one year ends, another begins. Whether you’ve had a year you’d rather forget, or an amazing year full of success, a new year always brings the opportunity for a fresh start. If you’re ready to set yourself some resolutions for the new year, then we’ve got 10 resolutions to help you have an amazing year.

Are you looking to set resolutions for your business and your personal life? Have you ever considered how business resolutions can be just like personal resolutions?

How business resolutions are just like personal resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are often associated with setting personal resolutions. Here are 10 of the most common personal resolutions that people set every year.

• Exercise more
• Lose weight
• Get organized
• Quit smoking
• Improve your finances
• Eat healthier
• Manage your stress
• Improve a relationship
• Spend more time with family and friends
• Travel more

We think that each of these resolutions can be closely related to your business too, or tweaked just a little bit. Let's take a closer look.

1. Exercise more

For your business, ‘exercise more’ could relate to investing into personal development, coaching or training for you and your team.

Just like your body, your business benefits from investing the time and energy into growing your business muscles and acumen. This is true not only for yourself but every person in your team too. Take the time to reflect and consider if you have truly given enough in this area in recent years - to both yourself and your team. Like most people, when they consider how much they have given to including exercise in their life, similar is true for personal development in business. The consensus, more often than not, is that you haven’t placed enough importance on personal development. It might be hard to take the first step, but you know you will get the rewards if you do, and you do it consistently.

2. Lose weight

When you lose weight, it is easier for your body to move and function. The same can be said for business. What excess are you carrying in your business? If you could identify your areas of waste and improve or remove them, what impact would it have on your cash flow and bottom line? Are there people in your business that are intentionally or unintentionally sabotaging your strategy and growth? Making the tough decision to remove them from the business or putting them into a different seat within the business might be exactly what your business needs to run a little faster and more efficiently.

3. Get organised

Being organised reduces stress and anxiety and makes you more efficient. Whether in your personal life or in your business, organisation can add clarity and help you to achieve more. Do you run a tight ship or is it time for the summer clean out? Start the new decade fresh with a business that is clear of clutter and confusion. By making the most of tools and technology in your business, you can tidy up your data and streamline processes.

4. Quit smoking

We all have bad habits. While quitting smoking can add great benefits to improving your health in your personal life, in business this could be similar to removing a habit that you know is not good for your business.

What are bad habits that you have in business? (Come on, we all have them). Make a list and then fine tune it down to the top one or two habits that would really make a big difference to how you feel and perform in your business.  For example, bad habits in business that you’d like to improve could be:

• Procrastinating and not being efficient with your workflow
• Avoiding having critical conversations with your team when you need to
• Letting your anger or emotions take over
• Not attending meetings that you don’t see the value in (or turning up late)
• Forgetting to compliment or show appreciation for your staff

We all have different habits that could be improved, and by improving or changing just one or two of these bad habits could make a massive difference for you and your team.

5. Improve your finances

Just like your personal finances, you need to pay attention to what is happening in your business. Take the time to learn how to read your profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow summary as these can help you make important decisions in your business. If you just asked what these reports are, then this may be a great resolution for you. We get it, not everyone likes numbers. But don’t stress, it really isn't that hard if you give it the attention it deserves and seek the guidance of a good accountant or business coach to help you know exactly what numbers you should be tracking in your business. Cash flow is king so knowing what you can do early in the new year to set your business up for greater success is important.

6. Eat healthier 

Eating healthier has the potential to significantly improve your energy and how you and your body functions overall. In business, eating healthier could be making better employment decisions, as this can greatly impact the ‘energy’ in your business.

By improving the decisions you make around who you bring into the business, and ensuring that your new employees align with your values, not only will your own energy improve, but so will that of everyone in your business. Employing the right staff will help your business to have the energy it needs to work to its full potential.

7. Manage your stress

Running a business is tough and managing stress is something that many business owners struggle with. With several options available to improve your stress management, the first step is to acknowledge that you are not operating at your best. When you’re not operating at your best, you can guarantee that it is having an impact on your business. Take the time to consider how it may be impacting performance, the team around you, your key relationships or your commitment to the business. It's time to focus on you and making healthier decisions. Eat better, exercise, improve sleep patterns or practice mindfulness. These will all help, however it is important to be brave and to ask for help or talk about it with someone that can help you.

8. Improve a relationship

Improving a relationship in business could be networking more effectively to grow your business partners or referral partners. There is a saying, “Your network is your net worth”. What is your net worth? 

There are so many people out there that could help you in your business. It may be as simple as putting yourself out there and attending one networking event every month. Imagine the impact of adding just one new referral partner every month. What difference could that make to your business?

9. Spend more time with family and friends

Spending more time with family and friends carries over from your personal life to your business life. How can you adjust your calendar each week to spend one extra hour per week with those you love the most? Maybe it means ensuring that you have one day per week that you will finish work on time, and not stay back at work. This will be different for everyone, but it needs to become a ‘non-negotiable’, otherwise it can quickly become an appointment that you don’t need to keep, and you will fall into your old habits.

10. Travel more

Travelling may not be at the top of the list for everyone, but it is high on the list for many. Adding in a conference in a different location each year may provide you with the opportunity to add in an extra few days of your own travel and get to see a different part of the world at the same time.

It is easy to get consumed by your business, however the years pass us quickly and you don’t know what is around the corner. Here at Your Business Momentum our purpose is to ‘help people live more enjoyable lives’. So we encourage you to pause, acknowledge what is really important in your business and your life and to find a way to make each of these things a priority for the year ahead.