After taking an honest look at what occurred in your business or career throughout the year, it’s time to decide where you want your business or career to go in the future. Before you head into the new year full of excitement and ambition, don’t forget the importance of recapping and reviewing, planning and preparing, and acknowledging and appreciating.
Re-Cap and Review
In order to know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been. Taking stock of the previous year lets you know what worked, what didn’t and how best to move ahead based on your findings.
Here are some questions for consideration when doing your review:
- Did you reach the yearly goals you set for your business?
- If so, what did you do that got you there? If not, where did it go off track?
- Perhaps there are some goals that no longer fit with the direction of your business. Decide what you want to take with you moving forward.
- Did your business grow last year? If so, what growth occurred and what decisions worked to get you there?
- If the status quo was maintained, what would have made the difference to see forward movement?
- Were setbacks experienced? If so, what systems were put into action to ensure the same thing would not occur again?
Don’t forget to celebrate yourself when you are reviewing your year. What did you achieve and what major wins did you have? How did you make those wins happen? How did it benefit you? And how can you recreate more of that in the future?
Celebrating your successes for the past year increases your confidence and puts you in a position to pull yourself up when you’re having a downward turn. It makes it easier to recover from challenging circumstances and reinforces how you react to situations when they arise. This, in turn, will give you the courage to take on bigger and better projects in the future.
Plan and Prepare
As an event planner, do you want to plan more outdoor events, indoor events, corporate events, green events, themed events, or more international events? Do you want to expand your network and collaborate with more vendors and partners? Do you want to take more courses or go back to school to master a particular skill you need improvement on?
You need a clear picture of where you want to drive your business or career and how you will make that happen. Click To TweetHere are 7 questions to ask yourself that will help steer you towards the right path in the new year:
- What goals do you want to reach in the year ahead?
- What benchmarks will you put in place to help you determine if you are successful?
- What tools and systems do you need to implement to enable you to meet those objectives?
- Schedule dates throughout the year for follow-up of goal progression.
- Are there any partnerships or joint ventures you want to make in the coming year?
- Can you brainstorm any out-of-the-box business opportunities to propose to referral partners in the coming year?
- Do you have a mission statement? If so, does it accurately reflect your core values and what your business stands for? Is it in line with the image you wish to project to the members of your industry and the public?
It is paramount to ask yourself these questions in the new year so that you can map out how, where, and when you want to set and achieve those goals.
Acknowledgment and Appreciation
In the midst of your planning and events, don’t forget about those who make you look good every day. Whether it’s large or small, having a celebration to honor those who help you achieve success in the first place has many benefits.
It’s important to show your team that you value their contributions. Celebrating them serves as a good morale booster and motivation for continued success down the road. It has been proven that team members who are routinely recognized and appreciated for their good work go above and beyond for their employers compared to those who don’t. It creates unity and a sense of family among your employees.
Similarly, don’t forget to acknowledge those loyal vendors with whom you work side-by-side every day. Hosting a small celebration to honor them is a great way to connect with them outside of a stressful work environment. Fostering a sense of loyalty with vendors is important in this business because you never know when you’ll need to call in a last-minute favor because something has gone sideways.
While you’re at it, don’t forget to attend a few parties as a guest. Becoming successful isn’t a solo journey. For that, you must build community.
Attending holiday parties provides an easy atmosphere in which you can do that. It allows everyone to relax and get to know people on a more personal level, expanding your relationships to build strong connections with others.
Building a network based on relationships rather than what you can get from someone puts you in a position where you can call on them in the future for guidance should you require it and they can call on you as well. No matter how long we’ve been in business there are times when we aren’t sure of the direction to take and building relationships and community with others gives us an alternative opinion to call on when we need direction from someone we admire and respect.
Indeed, before you start your 2019, remember to recap and review, prepare and plan, and acknowledge and appreciate. You’ll be on your way to a better year!