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REVIEW

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You need to review 2019 and here’s how…

Before we turn our eyes and expectations to a new year, there’s a place we need to go first. It’s highly underrated but really essential in creating the life and business that you want for yourself.

It’s time to revisit 2019 and review it.

Why?

Because it helps you see what went well and what didn’t.
It reminds you of significant events and the learnings that you have taken away with you. Review is essential in getting an overall picture of what went down in 2019 as this is how you got to where you are right now. And are you happy with where you are right now? Was this where you expected to be?

Reviewing your year in terms of personal and professional events and achievements provides significant insight and wisdom that you need to utilise as you move towards the next year.

There is no better time than now, to review the year before embarking on your path next year. To simplify the process and get you started, I’ve provided review questions for you to consider.

It’s important to take the time to complete this exercise thoroughly, that way you will get the most out of it. So don’t try and squeeze this in before a gym visit and your commute. Set aside a good hour or two of uninterrupted alone time. By the way, alone time also means turning your phone to silent or off completely. Take your time to reflect on each question and record your answers in a notebook or digital resource of your choice.

What were my top 3 accomplishments of 2019?

 Did I achieve the goals I set in my business / professional life this year? Yes/No 

Which goals were/ were not achieved? Why do you think this is the case?
 
What is working well in my business / professional life?

What is not working as well as I’d like in my business / professional life? Why do you think this is the case?

What were my top 3 experiences of 2019? 

What were the 3 most important things that I learnt this year?
 
If I could go back and change things, I would… 

If I could sum up 2019 in 3 words, it would be… 

What I need to do more of next year…Habits or actions I need to DO MORE OF next year:

What I need to do less of next year…Habits or actions I need to DO LESS OF next year:

I think you’ll find that after doing this exercise you will have a better sense of what kind of year you’ve had and what changes you may want to make moving forward. You will know very quickly if you’re on or off track or if your priorities have changed. Take an hour or two this week to complete the review and we’ll continue next week with looking towards the New Year and how we can use the information that you’ve uncovered in this review.

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Will you keep, modify or drop?

It’s the second quarter of the year already! Can you believe it? I hope you have had a great start to the year working on your goals. How are they progressing? It’s so important to check in about now and do a quick review of how it is all going.

Why?

So you know how far you’ve progressed with each goal and so you can clearly see what is and is not working. It does not have to take long, but this simple one act can make all the difference! You see, the goal-setting process is actually more flexible than most of us think. Well, it’s a paradox in a way. You have to fully commit and not waver, yet you must be flexible to allow your goals to evolve or change.

If it sounds confusing, stay with me… 

When you set your goals at the beginning of the year, you had to make choices about very specific directions you wanted to go in. Then you made a plan and started to go to work. You have had the end result in mind as you continue to move forward one step at a time.

That commitment and certainty to your goals path still remains important but now you must evaluate how that path is serving your goals. And if those goals are still relevant. A quick way to do this is to ask good questions.

These questions will help you to establish if your goals are still relevant. This is the first step.

For each goal you have, ask yourself:
Is this goal still important to me and my business?Will achieving this goal still have the impact/effect I thought it would when I first set the goal? Or is the outcome likely to be less impactful?

Next, you need to establish if the path you are on with your goals is serving its purpose or needs adjusting. Adjusting your goals path can be necessary for all sorts of reasons. It could be taking longer to progress than you thought. Maybe what you’re doing is not working at all. This is why we need to remain flexible. We must be willing to make changes based on the feedback we get from the review process.

Ask yourself:
Is the time-frame to achieve this goal still realistic?Am I getting good ROI with the actions I am taking? This could be time or monetary investment.Has another way to achieve the goal become apparent?

With your answers you can then decide whether to keep, modify or drop each goal. This review of your goals now, will help you avoid getting to the end of the year (or goal time-frame) and finding that you don’t have the results you wanted or that they have become irrelevant.

I hope you find it helpful in becoming more focused in the pursuit of your goals over the next few months.

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Don’t Start 2019 Until You Do This!

Before you embark on the goal-setting process and planning for 2019, you must review what happened this year. Before you even start dreaming about what goals you want to achieve next year, you must take a moment to look back at what has happened this year. This is is actually the first vital step in setting your goals for next year.

The review process is quite simple and really is just a matter of answering a few key questions. The answers you get will be so powerful and enlightening that you will unearth information that will assist you to do even better next year.

Your best year in business starts with reviewing the previous year.

Review is important because it forces us to look at the facts. Was what you set out to do at the start of the year and what you ultimately ended up with at the end of the year? What was easy? Did things take longer than expected (always, right?). The review process will help you to understand exactly where you are and to really take note of what the year embodied for you and your business.

The process of looking back offers the opportunity to learn, to understand your strengths and weaknesses and to therefore be better prepared to plot your course for the next 12 months.

Keeping it simple, here are some basic review questions that you can answer that will reveal valuable information to you about you and your business:

Did I achieve what I set out to achieve at the beginning of the year?
If not, why not? (Was it lack of resources? Did you just give up? )
Are the things I did not achieve, still important to the health of my business?
How can I ensure I achieve these goals next year?
What worked really well in my business?
Why do I think it worked well? (You have skills in this area/ you enjoy it/ it’s easy for you etc.)
What did not work well this year? What areas of your business are feeling a bit stuck?
What do I think would get me out of this particular rut?
What did I learn this year? (skills, philosophies etc.)
What was missing from my business this year?

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A quick & easy way to start reviewing

We all know that we’re meant to review but how many of us are doing it? It really is true that there is power in the review. It helps you to stay on track with your goals and makes it easy to identify times when you may need to update or change your goal or plan. It also helps in monitoring your workload. If you have many unfinished tasks at the end of the week, that’s a good sign you’re trying to do too much! So how can we incorporate review into our work cycle without it taking up too much time and energy? ie. How can we make it easy for us, so we’ll do it?:)

Here’s how to begin and maintain a review process in your business:

1. Decide on what you need to monitor in your business. It goes without saying that cashflow and other financials will be on this list, but what other metrics or goals do you need to keep track of? It could be reviewing the progress on your current goal, reviewing your social media stats or your networking outcomes for the week. Decide on the most important outcomes you need to keep track of and make a list.

2. Decide how often you need to monitor these outcomes. If you’re not sure, start with weekly and you can adjust it from there.

3. Create a simple review checklist. Having a checklist that you can easily access, will help you when it comes time to review. You don’t need to remember each time what you have to review, just follow your checklist. There are plenty of online options for this but Dropbox paper is one of my favourites. For each area of your business you want to review, ask yourself these questions:
Did I achieve the outcomes for this business area this week?
What is working in this area of my business?
What is not working on this area of my business?
What else did I learn this week about working on this area of my business?
What changes will I make for this to work better?