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New Year’s Goals and Resolutions for the Self-Employed

It is that time of year again where we can reset and rethink where we want our business to head in 2024. For an entrepreneur or a business owner, making new year’s goals and resolutions is a prominent task since you have the autonomy to plan your company’s journey for the next 12 months. Setting goals and resolutions for your small business is about the hope you have for a better future. When you expect things to get better for your company, it pushes you and your team toward positive action throughout the year.

Combining Resolutions and Goals
Setting resolutions and goals is important for each small business owner who plans on growing a business. When setting goals and resolutions for your small business, micro business, or family business, it is important for them to coincide and support each other. A resolution is a statement of what you want to change, while a goal is a statement of what you want to achieve. When combined, your goals will entail the specific steps you will take to ensure your resolution is achieved. Resolutions are written as concise statements, while goals are written as clear and specific calls to action, as seen in the example below:

Resolution:
To create a better work culture in 2024.

Goal:
To attend one professional leadership development conference this year.

Goal:
To create weekly schedules that prioritize work-life balance for everyone in the company.

Goal:
To develop a hiring process that ensures candidate values align with company values.

Reflecting and Prepping
Starting a business is a huge accomplishment that took tons of preparation and building a business to new heights each year requires the same effort. Setting small business resolutions and goals for your company in the new year encourages mindfulness which is great for manifesting business dreams into reality. Before setting your small business resolutions and goals, reflection is the first step of the process, so you can analyze the areas that need the most improvement. You should spend time reflecting on where your company is now, then shift your focus to where you want it to be at this time next year and write down the ideas you have that will get you there, which will be your resolutions. The goals are what will help you to move forward with clear direction and will serve as a guide for growing your business. You will be able to see where you want the company to be in the future and then can begin to make positive contributions to get there.

Ideas for Self-Employed Small Business Resolutions and Goals in 2024
Setting self-employed small business resolutions and goals will encourage you to have an optimistic view of the future, which is very important for a small business or micro business owner. Think of your resolutions and goals for the new year as something to strive toward, but not necessarily must-do items, so that you can have fun with them. Striving to improve, regardless of outcome, is what has the most positive impact on your company. Some areas that we recommend exploring for self-employed small business resolutions and goals in 2024 include:

Preventing burnout — Entrepreneurs and business owners are highly prone to burnout since they carry the weight of the company on their shoulders. Many report high levels of passion for their company and find it hard to step away from work. In order to prevent burnout, set resolutions and goals that focus on working only during certain hours and days a week, prioritizing mental health by scheduling down time, sleeping and meditating more, reducing the number of tasks or clients you take on, and delegating tasks to employees.

Cutting costs — It is always a good idea to check the budget to start the new year and find areas in the company where costs can be cut. When cutting costs, pick areas that you feel like you can cut down on and test it out for the first few months of the year. Technology is constantly advancing and can help companies cut costs as well. Companies can set resolutions and goals that focus on cutting down on office space by allowing employees to work remote, using more technology to streamline operations by automating repetitive tasks such as client scheduling, and hiring freelance workers in specialty areas such as marketing and finance versus full-time employees.

Improving productivity — Improving productivity often is associated with a healthy work culture and environment. Resolutions and goals should focus on creating a schedule that focuses on hard tasks in the morning when energy levels are high and taking personal time during later hours, prioritizing the things that matter most, taking more breaks throughout the day, encouraging employees to get outside each day, redesigning jobs to where they don’t overwhelm employees with multitasking and making time for personal reflection.

Adding products and services — Resolutions and goals not only help you focus on growing your business, but also are about a broader responsibility to your community. Adding products and services is a great way to grow your business and stay relevant with your customers. Since many people focus on their goals and resolutions at the new year, they are already spending time reflecting. Now is the time to send a poll or survey to your customers asking questions about what additional services and products they are interested in. Resolutions and goals should focus on collecting data on what new products and services your clients are interested in, testing the market with new products and services, and launching a new product and service.

Decreasing employee turnover — Decreasing employee turnover is something you should strive for in order to save tons of time and money. Goals for this resolution should focus on creating a better work culture for employees, adding professional development opportunities to the schedule, creating schedules that allow for work-life balance, giving employees more autonomy over their jobs by allowing them to create flex schedules and choose between in-office, hybrid or remote work environments, and to hire high-potential employees through screening for qualities such as leadership, adaptability, self-awareness, values, persistence, and more during the hiring process.

Breaking down your resolutions into goals
Goals are your resolutions broken down into specific steps that you can track throughout the year and remain intentional. In other words, resolutions are an ongoing idea, while goals usually include measurements and end points. If your resolution is to add a new service in 2024, then your goals should be the specific steps you are going to take to do that including a timeline for each. Goal examples include to run a poll each week in January to see what new services current customers are interested in and to create the budget for the new service by the end of February. Step by the step the goals should lead to the launch date of the new service in 2024.

Eventually, you will want to take it a step further and create a plan to accomplish each goal. The more planning that goes into each goal, then the better chance that your resolution will be a success. Keep in mind that pivoting and revising goals to get to your desired resolution are to be expected throughout the year. If one goal doesn’t lead to the desired result, then set a new goal. Even if you don’t see major change in 2024, resolutions and goals are pushing you to grow as an entrepreneur and leader, which has a positive impact on everyone around you, including your customers.

So happy planning and have a Happy 2024!