New Year's Resolutions

The time of year for New Year’s Resolutions is almost upon us again, and with it will come fair-weather promises to ourselves to get into shape, cut down on alcohol, and maybe tidy the garage. For many of you who frequent this site, the New Year’s Resolution will be something along the lines of a fairly vague ‘be more successful’, and that in and of itself is fine, but I’d like to invite you to take a step back a little.

I don’t mean to sound condescending when highlighting the vagueness of these hopes; none of us are exactly sure how to achieve that goal, and indeed we probably wouldn’t be here to read and contribute if we did. But I think that breaking our goals down will lead to an increased understanding, and in turn a greater chance for success.

First of all, write down your goal and its end date, and think of all the different ways that are measurable that you can use to identify whether or not you have been successful. These are your strategies. For example, if your goal is to grow the profile of your band, then one of the strategies could be to get 500 new subscribers to your mailing list.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was as simple as that? It’s not, I know. So that’s where you need to break down your strategies into tactics – HOW are you going to achieve this strategy? Well, to continue with the above example, you could put a widget near the top of your website to capture email addresses, you could offer something in return for signing up (eg a free song), ensure that you regularly push the mailing list across social media platforms, and of course any other ideas that you have.

Break down every strategy that you have for achieving your goal, and you will have measurable, reviewable indicators as to whether you’re on target for achieving your goal. It’s also worth making a list of your assets, or the things you already have in your arsenal too, as these may identify some of your tactics (if you have a lot of Instagram followers in comparison with Twitter and one of your strategies is to get more Twitter followers, it might be worth running a campaign to try to get your Instagram followers to follow you on Twitter too).

The above may sound like common sense, and it really is, but putting it all down on paper in a single place where you can refer to it will make things a lot easier. Good luck!

New Year's Resolutions