Creating Successful Habits to Reach Your Business Growth Goals
January 1st started strong. You set your personal and business growth goals and were determined to follow through with the habits needed to reach them before the next countdown starts on December 31st.
Yet here we are just a few weeks into the New Year, and many, if not most, of us have already given up on our resolutions and fallen back on our old habits.
Fine, I get it. I’m guilty of it too!
I’m not giving up, though, and neither should you.
Does this sound familiar?
Come January, each of us is committed to making it our best year yet.
We start the year out strong, full of hope and chutzpah, a real GO GET IT attitude.
We’re going to smash our growth goals.
Watch our profits and income climb.
Eat healthfully, move more, and on and on.
But something happens and all those big aspirations fall by the wayside until they’re picked up again next December, which is absolutely detrimental, catastrophic even, to your business (and well being!).
Here’s how NOT to let that happen in a simple 3 part process.
To turn a Big Vision and Long-Term Business Growth Goals Into Actualized Success, Follow This Simple Recipe:
Take DAILY action and support it with Focus, Repetition, and Resilience.
Let’s break it down:
FOCUS
Break your big exciting goal down into 90 day segments.
Take your 90 day goals and break them into weekly targets.
Your weekly target is your FOCUS.
REPETITION
Every week, make a plan that includes the action steps you need to do in order to hit your weekly target. Make it on Sunday so you can start Monday full speed—call it your Sunday Evening CEO Session (coined by my former mentor Carolyn Herfurth).
Put the actions on your calendar.
Start every day by looking at your weekly target, reviewing your action steps, and doing those FIRST.
RESILIENCE
If you miss a day/week/step… Don’t beat yourself up, just get back on it.
If you miss a goal, think about what you can do better or differently to shift the outcome for the next week or month.
At the end of the quarter, reconsider the overall goal. First CONGRATULATE and celebrate your achievements. Then, review your bite-sized action steps and adjust as needed.
This process is one I personally use and recommend to my clients for their business growth goals.
Because it’s these small habits that add up to BIG results!
You don’t have to take my word for it. Just check out the best selling book Atomic Habits by James Clear and you’ll understand the power waiting for you within the one key step of creating a focus to guide your actions each day and week.
I used this process with my client whose top priority was to decrease the debt she owed on the build-out of her bakery. It didn’t happen overnight, but each quarter as the business grew, she was able to increase payments and eradicate the debt!
To accomplish her debt eradication goal, the owner had to both increase sales (with new customers) and keep other expenses down. This one goal translates into two areas of weekly focus and action; without a system to manage these habits, she would likely have failed to achieve her larger goal, costing her business tons of money in the long run.
All goals are attainable when you break them down into manageable steps and consistent habits.
And just in case you’re needing more support...
Here Are 3 More Ways to Help You Create Habits That Stick in Your Business And Rely on Your Strategic Decision-Making When Plans Go Sideways:
Post your business goals in a visible place
This helps you and your team continually remember your goals, but also reminds you of the strategic planning that went into setting them.
Seeing your goals as you walk into your office, or turn on your computer day in and day out helps to solidify them and keep you moving forward when the going gets tough
Commit to Specific behaviors and then track them
Once you have set your goals, its time to think clearly about what needs to change to make it possible to achieve those goals. Often this will require you to adjust your default behaviors and intentionally practice a specific strategy or skill.
The best way to do this is to create a clear plan of action that moves you toward your goal, and then track how frequently you are able to reinforce that behavior.
>> Check out our Year-End Sprint Commitment Tracker Sheet HERE . The dates can be adjusted easily to fit your current period of time.
Accountability
As you’re running the business day-to-day, there are a million and one things that distract you from bigger picture efforts with longer time horizons.
You have a lot on your plate, much of which feels urgent, so it's hard to prioritize something that doesn’t have an immediate result.
But when you have someone in your corner — a coach, an accountability buddy, a small group of fellow business owners — you have another voice of encouragement to keep you on track...and occasionally kick you in the pants when you need it. :)
Simply put: if you know you’ll have to show-up and share your results with someone (or a group of people) who are supporting your success, you’re more likely to focus on those commitments. This is not a judgment about work ethic or ability; this is a fact from behavioral science.
At CFO on Speeddial we often act as that accountability partner for owners that have engaged our Virtual CFO service. And of course, peer support and accountability is a built in feature in our Meaningful Money program.
How can you get even more support (and accountability!) in crushing your business growth goals in 2024?
Join our CFO Advisor group program so you can have a team of business besties alongside CFO support to crush your business and profit goals.
To get started: Apply for a free 30-minute meeting with one of our CFOs.
The focus of the conversation will be on your business, the challenges that are top of mind for you, and the actions you could be taking. But we'll also talk about how CFO on Speeddial helps companies like yours gain stability and resilience in a crazy and unpredictable world.