So how’s your year been so far? You’ve stuck with all of your resolutions I’m sure. Or you’ve done what you need to re-evaluate your goals and make realistic changes to achieve them.
We’re all for accountability and commitment here at Skipio, but sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is acknowledge that you need to make a change. You’ll thank yourself later if you do.
Ask yourself these questions when thinking about your goals to give yourself the best chance of success the rest of the year.
Is Your Timeline Practical?
Creating a timeline for accomplishing your goals is part of the accountability process. Otherwise we put things off to do “some day.”
A month(ish) into your goals, you now have some context for how things are going and should be able to make a judgment call about your initial timeline.
It’s great if you and your team want to, for example, decrease how long it takes you to respond to messages. But if you’re understaffed or otherwise overworked, you’ll only hurt your chances of achieving that goal if you originally aimed to decrease response times by X number of minutes by a specific date.
Of course it sounds fulfilling to achieve a lot in a short amount of time. But a goal so far out of reach will only make people feel less capable and ultimately hurt the business when it’s not achieved.
So adapt your timeline. If later on you realize you made it too easy, adapt and re-evaluate your goals or create a new end date.
Do You Have a Support System?
If you haven’t made anyone else aware of your goals, you’re depriving yourself of an important support system. Not only can others remind you to stay on track, they can also offer encouragement or assistance when things go off course. Because nothing ever goes exactly to plan.
Even if you’re “in charge,” you aren’t exempt from needing accountability or support. Doing everything on your own or taking full responsibility for team goals means you won’t be prepared to support your employees when they need you most.
Encourage transparency about overall company goals and share your own business-related goals with others to create a more supportive working environment.
Is This Goal Actually Going to Help Your Business?
Or in other words, will this help you help your customers? Because if not, there isn’t much point.
Hypothetically, aiming to send a certain number of texts a month to garner more responses is a great goal. Why wouldn’t you want to talk more with your leads or customers? But if you don’t have the content to back it up, those texts aren’t actually going to help you develop relationships. You might even be hurting them.
Obviously you don’t need to abandon such a goal completely. After all, you intentionally chose it for a good reason. But without focusing or adapting it in some way, you’ll only end up frustrated and sad when you don’t get the results you hoped for.
Re-evaluate your goals again to determine if they really help you move business forward.
Are You Happy?
Not everything you do for work will be fun and you certainly won’t always be happy. But ultimately if what you’re striving for is making you miserable, there’s no reason you have to keep it that way. So adapt and figure out a new way to manage the goal.
That might mean shifting the timeline, delegating some of the responsibility, relying more heavily on a support system, or focusing the rest of your time on projects you find more fulfilling. Work with your team to set up a plan that maximizes everyone’s strengths and happiness levels.
There’s nothing wrong with needing to adjust or re-evaluate your goals as long as you do it with realistic self-awareness. Be honest with yourself and encourage everyone you work with to do the same.
Above all, be kind to yourself.
