Heading into a new year, and even beyond it, one of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself and your business it to set goals that will help you continue to grow. Goals as a business owner can be for personal growth, for business growth, or both. Sometimes staying on track and completing a goal that you have can be hard. Things come up and life gets in the way and sometimes goal setting and achieving them gets put on the back burner.

Set a goal

The easiest way to make steps towards a goal you want to achieve is to actually set one. More than simply saying “I want to do XYZ”, actually define your goal, set metrics and give yourself a deadline. Having a hard deadline to accomplish a task will apply a little pressure to actually act towards completing it.

Attainability

When you’re setting a goal for yourself and your business, make sure it’s a goal that’s actually attainable in a reasonable amount of time and not ongoing. Those might be “Long term goals” and “future ambitions” but something as broad and possibly outlandish as “I want to make a million dollars” might not be feasible for what you’re doing. You can set attainable goals by basing it off of metrics you already have. You can say “I am going to boost my revenue by 5% in the next 60 days” and that is a reasonable goal that you can reach with hard work.

Tell somebody

Hold yourself accountable through social media or through people who will motivate you. Chances are on social media, you have connected with like-minded individuals who have goals that are similar in nature. Posting and talking about your goals can keep you on track because after you talk about your goal you will most likely receive encouragement and advice from your followers and connections. Not only will you gain encouragement but you will be motivated to show your results and keep yourself honest and on track throughout the process.