5 New Year's resolutions for SMEs that can be completed in a day

6-minute read

It’s thought that 80 per cent of New Year’s resolutions fail. According to Psychology Today, there are a number of common causes of failure.

These include the goals of the resolution not being crystal clear, the resolution being too overwhelming, and people being unprepared for change.

It’s easy to see how these causes apply to resolutions made by business owners and entrepreneurs every year.

For example, the resolution to ‘delegate more’ doesn’t include any sub goals. It’s generic and so likely to fail.

The same applies to ‘learn something new’. There are no instructions for what to learn or how to learn it included in the goal, so it’s likely to fail, too.

With this in mind, tsoHost has compiled a list of resolutions that can be achieved in a day or less.

Adopt a millionaire mindset

At first glance this resolution seems like a gargantuan one. Intuitively, it may seem to go against everything we’ve said above.

But hear us out. There’s a cheat.

In between eating leftovers on New Year’s Day, go online and read Bill Gates’ Annual Letter.

Every year, Bill Gates and his wife Melinda write a 5,000-plus word letter in which they review the year gone by and consider the year to come.

It takes about 15 minutes to read, but it offers a real insight into the minds of the millionaire business couple.

Reading it should inspire you to think about your own achievements, goals and priorities for 2020.

Got a little more time before charades starts again? Head to Richard Branson’s blog and read his first post of 2020. His first article of 2019 was titled ‘Stuck in a rut? My top tips for trying something new in 2019’.

Get your work life balance in order

Again, another massive challenge on paper.

But the answer to this problem could be found between the covers of a book that can be read in a day or two.

Try The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.

We wrote about this book in our recent blog article Rethinking work life balance. In a nutshell, it’s about how people who manage their to-do list based on their energy, as opposed to their time, get more done.

Be more creative

Yet another huge challenge, however, as with the above two resolutions, there’s a cheat.

Either go online or brave the New Year sales and buy a piece of artwork for your office in 2020.

Why?

Studies show that a fifth of people believe that having artwork on the walls of their office can help inspire creative discussion and aid the brainstorming process.

Need more proof? Facebook employs a team of 25 people to constantly update the art works on the walls of its global offices.

Facebook says: “We believe design and printmaking is a path to clarity and truth. We support creative projects from diverse voices that spur constructive and critical conversations at Facebook through hands-on processes and analogue mediums.”

Learn something new

Okay, so we used this as an example of the sort of New Year’s resolution that fails in the introduction to this blog.

However, again, there’s a work-around.

When you’re not watching a Friends or Columbo rerun on New Year’s Day, subscribe to a few newsletters. Take a look at our round-up of websites that every SME needs to know about from 2019.

These sites serve up the latest advice and news on SEO, digital marketing, business insights and business tech.

Subscribe to one or two of the newsletters to get the latest insights and tips in your inbox and commit to reading one at least once a week. To be more precise, set yourself half an hour once a week to read over the latest news.

Keep your New Year’s resolution

Yes, a resolution to keep your resolution.

Again, this one isn’t as vague as it sounds. It involves tuning into a podcast.

In the New Year, podcasts like PsychCrunch will likely be covering topics such as sticking to resolutions and breaking unhealthy habits. Set a time to listen to a podcast once a week and stick to it for a month to form a habit.

Once you’ve got into the habit of listening to a podcast, you might want to switch to one that’s more business focused.

Try Wonder, which hosts interviews and discussions with thought leaders and entrepreneurs or Unemployable, a podcast that focuses on entrepreneurial strategy and the ‘7-figure small’ lifestyle.

Then what?

So, you’ve achieved your New Year’s resolution in a day or two. What now? Set up for success! Need a new domain, more web hosting power or increased security in 2020? Visit our product pages to find out how tsoHost can help.