“A wise plan is the first step towards success.” Anonymous
Every year it is a brand new start and comes to us with new hopes. It’s an opportunity to evaluate our last year and plan our new year. Have you assessed your 2018? I suggest you do a self-assessment every year. How was 2018? Were you happy? Were you successful? Did you evaluate the opportunities you had? What had you planned for 2018 and how much of your planning could you have done? If you have not scheduled for 2018 and feel that your 365 days have gone by without understanding, this article is written for you. Prepare to ask yourself questions for 2019, to make your new year more productive. If you have not planned for any of your years until now, and you say I do not have such a habit, you have the opportunity to learn how you can increase your efficiency by planning. If you’ve made plans and had problems with practice, find out what’s blocking you from accomplishing your projects and try again in 2019. If you were successful in 2018, then congratulations on your overall success in 2018 and good luck with your new goals in 2019.
Life acts like a river flowing very fast and tries to drag us in the direction that it wants. If we have well-defined our goals and objectives, we will have the chance to steer the helm in the right direction. Ask yourself questions and be honest and realistic about your planning to set your way this year. “What is your expectation for this year?” “What do you want this year to change/happen in your life?”.
You should also be aware of your setting should be structured. Review your goals periodically during the year and update your plans by making the necessary changes (you can make quarterly evaluations).
Let’s ask ourselves four specific and straightforward questions, and following the answers, dream about our goals and achievements for the next 365 days:
- What do I want to achieve in 2019?
What are the objectives I want to succeed? What kind of plan do I have to develop?
- What do I want to add to my existing qualifications and competencies this year?
Learn a new language or learn a new computer program that can be useful for your business or writing your blog.
- What habits would I like to change?
For example, if you feel that you have the ability to procrastinate and it affects your business life, you can set personal goals for it. For instance, you can have a goal like “I’ll answer the incoming mail in 24 hours at the latest.”
- From which social group does I want to have a new friend?
Your friends are one of your most important values that determine the quality of your life. In the new year, you can target yourself to make a new friend from your business environment.
One of the most important things is to be as transparent as possible when setting goals. If you decided to improve on any subject, define how to do it and describe the way you reach the goal in details. Let me give you two targeting examples:
1 – This year I will increase my speaking level in English into proficiency level. For achieving this goal, I will take private lessons every week and assess my progress in 6 months with a friend of mine who is a native English speaker. (6. month evaluation/all year).
2 – In addition to use PowerPoint, this year I will also learn another presentation program, Prezi and make more colorful presentations with it (learning and evaluation 3.month/prepare at least 2 of my performances in 6 months with Prezi/all year).
Don’t forget to rank in importance after setting goals for yourself. Choose 3 or 5 of the things for you as the most important ones and focus on them. Too many goals can cause your time to be over-divided, and it can prevent you from getting the result you want. The most practical way to achieve what we want in life is to do the right planning and follow the plan. In the light of these examples, you can set your own goals and take advantage of yourself to achieve what you want. Howay, get your paper pen and start writing what you wish to this year.
K.