Aligning Your New Year's Resolutions with Your Business Goals

I recently connected with a friend who shared a yearly joys/sorrows/hopes ritual she and a few girlfriends perform each New Year's Eve.

Here’s how it works.

Each one of them has a jar containing three papers:

• One with joys from the previous year.

• One with sorrows of the prior year.

• One with hopes for the year that is to come.

While they may open their jar occasionally over the course of the year to remind themselves of what they wrote, they band together each New Year’s Eve to share and reflect on the sorrows and joys of the past 12 months. As the clock approaches midnight, they capture their hopes for the year to come. A new year begins with learnings and aspirations already documented.

There's a lesson to be learned here for businesses.

The beginning of each year provides a clean slate from which to start. Many people make resolutions for the coming year, they start something new, they turn the page to a new personal chapter. Workwise, new targets are set, new initiatives are launched, new opportunities abound.

As you think about leading your team into and through this year, how have you shared your joys and sorrows from 2022? Have you celebrated successes? Held retrospectives and debriefs on what did not go as well? What do you know about what your team members want for the year ahead? And what do they know about what you wish to achieve?

Celebrating successes not only motivates team members, but also empowers others how to do something well. Sharing the story of a team member’s contribution to a project’s success is like a case study for performance.

Reflecting on the failures and misses from the previous year is crucial since they help bring clarity and trigger learning and growth. But don't dwell on the mistakes. Instead, focus on the lessons your team can glean from them.

More than anything, be sure to move your team forward with hope and optimism as you prepare for what’s to come. Yes, team members need to know what the targets are for the year, and yes, you need to know that every team member is aligned to the same set of objectives. Beyond that, take time to learn what your team members dream of for the year so that you can do your part to make your work productive and fulfilling.

The bottom line is you don't have to keep a New Year's Eve jar to spark magic. We at ShinePR are ready to help you map out your marketing strategies so that those are the successes you are talking about this time next year.

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