New Year’s Resolutions are bollocks

As my dry January lasted 5 days, my diet until Fish and Chip Friday and my ‘I will only work 10 hours days’ didn’t last….well…… 10 hours, I was beginning to think I was the world’s worst at keeping my New Year’s resolutions. However, overall actually my healthy eating and increased exercise regime is sticking like glue which I am pretty chuffed about. So I am looking at the areas I have been successful in to try and replicate in the areas that I am less so – to improve my personal performance. And I thought I’d share it with you – because whilst I am a bit crap at personal resolutions – I am very good at my business ones – and I kind of think the principles are the same.

So if you need to change a behaviour or a habit – and there is a difference – be it personal or business related, how do you do it? I know for some of you who face procrastination or lack of commitment to your business aims, behavioural changes are paramount for seismic shifts in productivity, and indeed your business trajectory. So here’s five really important things you need to do.

Number one – Remember behaviours are not stand alone activities – they are woven in to a tapestry of combined actions that end up outputting the one you want to avoid. Procrastination is a very good one. If you are pissing about not achieving what you need to, you have to get behind your procrastination to find out why. Literally ask yourself – why am I behaving this way? Is it self-sabotage? Is it fear? Fear can be of failure or indeed success. There is not a single business person I know that has time – so why do so many people suffer from faffing? I have such a sense of urgency about my time, an endless list of things to do that when I start faffing, rather than ploughing through my list I ask myself why?

Number two – you have to change your input to change your output. I am coining a Zig Ziglar phrase here but basically it’s the cause and effect principle. If you are getting a certain outcome, you really have to change what you are doing to cause it. Because if you keep doing the same thing, well you’ll keep getting the same thing. Quick example for you. I had had a series of failures in my accounts department due to the nature or type of the people I was recruiting AND my mismanagement of it. So we recruited different types of people and I delegated the management to a better I dotter and T crosser. Result – one smooth running accounts department – finally. We changed the recipe and baked a better cake. I love a food analogy!

Number three – replace the behaviours with something that’s better for you. Drink wine to wind down? Have a bath or do some yoga instead. Eat rubbish? Don’t buy it for a start (you’ll always eat biscuits fi they are in the cupboard) and make sure you have plenty of good stuff to nibble on instead. Log on to Facebook at lunchtime and find yourself there an hour later? Instead look up a Ted Talk which will help your business grow. Read a business digest, or a business book instead. Work all the time? Get a relaxing hobby to fill your busy head.

Now this ‘work all the time’ thing is a particular challenge for us budding entrepreneurs – I know if I was undisciplined I would work 24/7 – but it doesn’t make me effective. I get more ideas away from the coalface then at it – so you have to force yourself to not work occasionally.

Number four, be realistic. It’s all very well pretending that you will have the time to go to the gym at 4am, or you’ll work from 4am everyday but very few of us are super human. There is a particular business guru I listened to recently who was suggesting you go to bed by 8pm to get up by 4am – I presume he didn’t have a family, or friends, or even a business to go to? In practice its impossible to live like that. Now I am known for my 03:00 starts – but I only do it 3 days a week – and I don’t do ANYTHING other than work on those days. Literally get up, work, and sleep. I CANT do anything else. I am so focused and eventually so tired that I would be setting myself up for failure if I tried to get in a run or a gym visit on those days. To balance health and work I make sure on the 4 other days I am not working big hours I then commit to my cardio, and sleep and relaxation. But I have given up trying to do everything on my big work days – it just can’t be done. I have to been realistic.

Finally – and this one has been THE biggest. Find your KPI’s and record what you do. Monitor progress. The simple act of monitoring what you do every day, what you achieve or indeed don’t achieve makes an enormous difference. Whether it’s recording your to do list in your calendar, or monitoring your steps of a pedometer, or keeping a food diary, or a work journal – the simple act of recording it brings a realization and self-awareness which is very motivating if you are dedicated to change. One of the reasons I am moving more is this – telling me when I have and haven’t met my 10000 steps in a day. My work version is my weekly job totals, invoice summaries, and management accounts which all tell me whether we are on track or under it. These are key performance indicators show me where I am – and indicate what I need to get back on track, if I have slipped.

In summary to make your resolution stick, regardless of the time of year, try my top 5;

1 – Address the WHY behind the behaviours
2 – Change your input to change your output
3 – Replace bad behaviours with good ones
4 – Be realistic
5 – Set KPIs and monitor

I’m really interested to see how the above helps so remember to feedback at katelester.com.

Bye for now.