New Year, New You: 3 Ways to Ensure that Your Business Development Resolutions Last

With the start of 2018 upon us, it’s a good time to revisit how we can help drive toward success. I want to share a few insights that I’ve gained over my years as a Sandler trainer.

1. Set achievable goals.

Before you try to stay on top of your goals, make sure you set ones that you can actually accomplish. Too often, professionals get ahead of themselves and set goals that are too lofty, like doubling or tripling their revenue in a given year. While inspiring, expectations like this are unrealistic. You are much more likely to stick to your convictions if you set out to achieve something you truly believe you can.

Psychologist Peter Herman identified what he calls the “false hope syndrome.” This condition is prevalent in many people who form unrealistic goals and resolutions that are out of alignment with their internal view of themselves. Herman goes on to say that making positive affirmations you don’t believe, are not only ineffective but they’re damaging to your self-esteem.

Instead of determining that you wish to triple your revenue this year, decide what you want to accomplish this quarter, or this month. Then, upon completion, depending on your level of success, decide if you wish to set a similar goal for the next month, tone it back, or ramp it up.

This leads us perfectly into my next suggestion.

2. Reevaluate and reassess constantly.

Unless you possess a crystal ball or you’re a soothsayer, it would be unrealistic to assume that you know exactly how your year will turn out. Trying to predict your level of success or dictate your actions for all of 2018 is very challenging, and sometimes a pointless exercise.

You’re more likely to be able to predict your actions for a shorter period of time, like a month or a quarter. Break down your  resolutions into manageable periods that you can track. Upon completion of a specific period, look back at what you accomplished, the actions you performed, and your ability to repeat those behaviors and build upon them moving forward. Based on your analysis, determine what your new resolution should be. You can either set those stretch goals a little further or bring them back down to reality.

Being flexible is an important part of succeeding professionally, and it’s a crucial part of my third tip as well.

3. Cut yourself some slack.

All too often, people start the year off strong in pursuit of their goals, but eventually falter, revert to their old negative habits, and become discouraged. If you’re too hard on yourself and become defeated by your inability to stick to a resolution, you’re much less likely to achieve it.

Before setting out to accomplish a task or goal, understand that you’re human, mistakes are part of the learning process, and failures are just stepping stones towards ultimate success. If you become derailed from your goal, take a breather, reassess how you can achieve it, and get back to it.

Your resolution or goal is only lost if you abandon it. One of my favorite sayings is “From now on…” From now on means regardless of what happened yesterday, good or bad, I intend to hit my goals from this day forward.

Everyone has resolutions, and each year people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year. Make your goals a reality by setting attainable resolutions, analyzing and adapting on the go, and cutting yourself a little bit of slack day to day.