End of Year Evaluation - Finding Emotional Business Resilience
I’m getting ready for my big event of the year, and as a result I’m going through everything! I think it’s the end of year in me where I go through and evaluate the things that aren’t working and the things that are working and the things that need to change. And then I look at 2022 to figure out what I need to do to grow and develop both personally and professionally.
Today I’m sharing with you a couple of things in each of those different categories. It’s a great time of year as the seasons and years change, to evaluate your business and personal life as well.
Sometimes when things break down, you get an opportunity to put them together in a new and better way. On my recent podcast I was chatting with my good friend, Amy Walker about letting go when things break down. We talked about having a 2022 lens, different things that are working now that didn’t work before, and different things that used to work but don’t in the same way anymore. I like to call this emotional business resilience. Being able to work past the things that don’t work so that you can focus on the things you do and then being able to move forward confidently.
I kind of joke with some of my speaking friends that now, after this giant pandemic, I feel like I’m starting over. Like my business is a startup again. It’s a new world and things are different. Sometimes we get so laser focused on the way that we used to do things that we are close minded to the ways that we could be doing them better.
Today I want to share with you an end of year evaluation you can do to gain some awareness about where you are as a business and where you want to go moving forward.
1. What worked this year?
What are some things that you did in operations, some things you did in planning, some things you did with your people, some things you did with your marketing that worked? Those are things you know you definitely want to take with you into the next year.
2. What didn’t work this year?
Make a list of them! Marketing for me, is getting the right messages to the right masses on the right mediums. The Three Ms. No one is more important than another, you need all three! So when you’re evaluating what didn’t work, be really specific because sometimes minor tweaks will fix it! Sometimes our greatest successes come from minor tweaks and minor shifts in one direction.
3. What needs to change?
These three questions can bring you into a really great emotionally resilient space to think about and evaluate your business, and to make the right decisions that will help you go into 2022 feeling really confident.
4. If I were to do something completely different, what would it be?
What would you try? As business owners and as humans, we get caught in the path of least resistance and we don’t want to think we do. We want to find what’s easy and comfortable and we start to float instead of paddle. Do some research, figure out what you want to do, and then make a decision! Go in with your eyes wide open!
A little bit of planning goes a long way. I always tell my clients that plan is the four letter word for success. Whether we hate it or love it, it is the thing that makes all the difference. Now is the best time to start. Do it now, the calm before the storm. We all know that once December comes it’s BAM. January. So get started today!