As a new year is about to begin, your analyse the year that ends. Sometimes, you realize that you reached and even exceeded your business goals. In other cases though, you can see that you failed to reach your goals. And this is a milestone in your business – and for your mindset. As in my experience as a business owner I had years when I didn’t meet my goals either and I also worked with people who didn’t reached their goals, I decided to include the tips and lessons I learned in an article hoping this will help you in your business if you are in this situation right now. So, here are are the 6 ways to manage not achieving your business goals this year – and what to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again!

6 ways to manage not achieving your business goals you set for this year

All business have ups and downs. That’s how things go. Sometimes the lows are quite big and you may be close to bankruptcy. In other occasions, it’s not that bad. But the main issue remains: you fail to reach your business goals. Here are the best 6 ways to manage not reaching your goals.

Analyse the goals and your strategy first

So things didn’t go as planned. It’s not the end of the world. But you need to figure out why this happened. To do that, you need to start with your initial goals. You need to be honest with yourself and answer these simple, but relevant question: were they attainable?

I mean, if you are just launching your business, is setting a goals of having 1000 courses sold in the first month or making $100000 in the second month something achievable or is it more wishful thinking?

Being clear on your goals is so important in creating your strategy and in actually reaching your goals. I cannot emphasize enough how important this is. Without clear goals, you can’t create your road, your business roadmap. And, while you can have some results, you can miss your true potential. Also, if you set goals that are completely out of your reach, you may be heading to burnout and disappointment.

If you need help getting clarity for your business, on your goals, strategy, or next steps, remember I am always here to help! Book your Boost Your Business 60-minute free coaching session NOW!

Then, you need to more to the strategy.

Did you have a clear strategy in place?

During my business experience as an entrepreneur mentor and a business coach, I saw so many business owners,aspiring entrepreneurs, and service providers and consultants not having a strategy in place with clear tactics that will allow them to reach their goals.

If you had a strategy, then you need to see if it was aligned with your goals. Were your actions consistent, aligned, and relevant? If not, then you may just have discovered why you didn’t manage to reach your goals.

Note what didn’t work and when did things take a turn for the bad

While analysing your year, your goals and strategy, you can easily pinpoint the exact moment when things started to take a turn for the bad. When you missed a milestone, when things didn’t go as planned and a whole snowball of side effects appeared.

Note what happened – was there a personal/medical emergency? Did you lose motivation? Did you fail to adapt your strategy? Did you fail to do the planned activities?

Ask yourself these questions and try to discover what really happened, why you did not manage to reach one or more of the goals you set for this year. This will help you better plan your business strategy for the year to come, so make sure you are thorough and note all your observations.

Mindset: not failure, lessons – improve for the future

So things didn’t go your way. It happens. It’s not the end of the world, as I mentioned. But how you see this stage – the fact that you did not reached your goals – is important for you as a business man/entrepreneur/coach/service provider/freelancer.

When I launched my first business, back in 2005, I had no idea how important the mindset really is. How the way you perceive a situation influences your business, your strategy, your performance.

There are so many examples of great business men, inventors, writers – in fact, I am sure we can find examples in all domains! – who didn’t manage to reach their goals from the first attempt. Artists and writers didn’t manage to sell anything when they first launch; entrepreneurs who had business failures. Inventors who failed classes.

The one thing that they had in common is that they didn’t give up. It was not a major failure. It was but a step – and they continued to move forward.

Pay attention to your mindset and remember that if you didn’t manage to reach your goals, is not necessarily a failure (or not only that): it’s an opportunity to learn and to do better in the future! Don’t let this lesson go to waste!

Personal development

I had discussions with many entrepreneurs and business owners who didn’t manage to reach their goals and, when they dug deeper, they discovered that they needed to improve one or more skills in order to be as successful as they’d like and to make the impact the want to make.

A few needed to work on their presentation skills, other needed to work on their sales skills, and so on and so forward.

So, what about you: is there a specific skill you need to improve? (communication, negociation, video etc.)?

Or, if it’s something you don’t want to invest time and money on improving (for instance creating your email sequence, the design for your marketing materials, etc. – is there something you could to delegate so that you can focus on the things that you are good at and on helping your clients?

Think solutions

This is mindset related, I admit, but I wanted to dedicate a special note because this way of viewing problems – and not reaching your goals – is truly important.

Instead of focusing on what didn’t work, think of what you could have done instead, what you could do now to solve the issues and reach your new goals. Developing a mindset of solving issues instead of dwelling into what’s not working, self pity, and being a victim – everyone else is successful but you – will help you a lot in your business, no matter how big or small nor in what domain it is. Always think solutions. Solve things, then get to the root cause and try to remove it in order for the problems to not appear again.

Decide that it’s a closed chapter and focus on the future

The year has ended – or it’s about to. You didn’t reach your goals. It’s not a happy situation. But you need to see it as a closed chapter and move on to the next one. You need to focus on what you can do better in the next year – based on the answers to all the things mentioned above.

Focus on the future. Be better next year!

What to do to make sure you reach your goals

As you prepare to set the goals for the next year, you need to make sure you avoid the mistakes you did this year. In fact, you’ll need to make sure you avoid all the mistakes you ever did in your business – and those that you know your friends or mentors did. Because life it’s too short to repeat mistakes!

How to make sure you reach your business goals for the next year? Here are 6 ways to make sure you have a profitable business next year.

Set proper goals

If the goals you set for this year weren’t the most inspired ones, don’t make the same mistake. Make sure you set attainable, measurable goals, that don’t imply you working 23 hours per day, 7 days a week, but that will allow you to work with as many clients as you desire and make the income you want in order for you to live your dream life.

Write down these goals and make sure you feel comfortable with them. Now, don’t fall into the trap of setting way too low expectations. You need to go a bit outside your comfort zone in order to get different, better results in your business. You need to try new things. But there needs to be a balance.

Set milestones

Don’t wait for a whole year to see if things are working or not. Break the big goal into smaller, more easily achievable ones and set clear deadlines/milestones when a given result needs to be achieved.

Have a clear strategy

if you want to be successful, you need to have a clear action plan. The strategy will help you stay on track, see what’s working, and when you need to correct something.

Set clear actions and milestones – and make sure you always check these deadlines and analyse the situation to see if everything goes according with the plan or if you missed a step or you need to adapt a bit your strategy.

Knowing your destination – where you want to go – will help you find the best possible route to get there! Having a (business) map (your actionable strategy) will help you reach that destination!

As I know sometimes it’s hard to see the bigger picture and to create a great strategy – and as I’ve been doing this for the last 14 years (and counting), if you need help feel free to get in touch. Let’s start with a Boost Your Business free 60-minute coaching session!

Learn from the previous years

One of the best ways to make sure you reach your business goals this year is to learn from what happened in the past in your business. Look at what worked and what didn’t and draw the necessary conclusions.

You can also learn a lot by analysing what you enjoyed doing, and what you didn’t like so much – and, obviously, removing what you didn’t like to do and focusing on the activities that you enjoyed doing and got you results.

Not learning from the past is a sure way of repeating mistakes and of not reaching your full potential!

Adapt along the year, if necessary

I definitely don’t recommend you to jump from one strategy to another, to go after the next shiny thing or trend. I always recommend creating the best possible strategy and sticking to it, making sure you do your best to turn your dreams into reality, to reach your goals, and to follow all the steps in the strategy.

This being said, you have to be a bit flexible and to realize when something is really not working (maybe it wasn’t perfect for you or your business) and to adapt, to change things a bit. Otherwise, you may end up with another year in which you don’t reach your goals.

That’s why it is so important to not only have a clear strategy, a clear business roadmap, but also milestones – or smaller goals, that can be reached in a shorter period of time.

It’s like project management: everything has to fall in it’s place at the right time. And everything is connected. In order for something to work well, all the previous steps need to be successful. But, sometimes, there are different ways to reach to an end. And if your planned tactic/action is not getting you the results you want/need, then you can choose a different path in order to get to the same result and make sure your bigger picture (your strategy and, ultimately, your business) moves forward.

Be consistent and take action

Having clear goals and a great strategy in place is not enough. You need to do the work. You need to take those required steps, to implement the actions in your strategy.

You need to take action. There can be no success without taking action. Good action!

You also need to be consistent. You have to be present on a constant basis. You can’t just do something now, for a month, and expect a surge of clients and then do something for a month, at the end of the year, and get more new clients and that’s it. You need to create marketing materials, get visibility, work on your offer/programs/products, etc. And you need to be visible – also on a consistent basis.

I hope you’ll use these tips and recommendations to make sure you reach your business goals for the next year! Best of luck to you – and remember: you can always reach out at loredana@advancenow.biz for any advice you need, questions about running a business, how to launch a business, how to get visibility for yourself and your products/services.