Another year is coming to an end, and a new one is just around the corner. A yearly review is essential, much like the review at the end of a sales quarter. A year in review is more than just evaluating goals and reflecting on the year’s wonderful memories, unfortunate situations, and challenges. Preparing for the end of the year entails combining everything you’ve learned—wins, goals, losses, and shortfalls—which will be added to a realistic goal and a plan to improve the following year.
Before the new year begins, it is critical to assess where you are with your goals and what needs to be done to close any gaps in the coming year, but most importantly, it is time to celebrate the victories. I believe in celebrating our wins. I celebrate my successes by buying something nice, going out to dinner with team members, taking a quick trip somewhere fun, or simply opening a bottle of good wine and relaxing on a day off. During a month, I have a habit of pushing extremely hard for the first two weeks, finalizing everything for the month in the third week, then celebrating victory in the fourth week, slowing down the last two days of the week, and enjoying a day off if I’ve earned it. I enjoy the freedom that comes with being ahead.
When I was working in business-to-business sales and knocking on doors, all the guys would give these great motivational speeches from sports coaches. As a six-foot-one woman (you can imagine how often people ask if I play basketball) who has never played sports, I didn’t care much for the speeches until I started working for myself. When I didn’t have anyone to motivate me, quotes from legendary 1990s Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula got me going.
One of my favorite quotes from Shula is, “Success is not forever, and failure isn’t fatal.” A year goes fast, but it’s a long time, broken down into four quarters, each representing where we have been and what we still need to accomplish. It can be hard to stay motivated on our own, but we don’t have a choice.
Use the Don Shula 24-hour rule to keep moving toward long-term goals in the year to come. Shula was big on celebrating wins or mourning losses for one day and then encouraging his team to get back to it and win the next one. With this rule, you can mourn a loss, or celebrate a win, but you have only twenty-four hours to do it. After one day, it’s time to get back to it and train the mind to win the next one.
This really resonates with me; when I messed up, I would dwell on it for months; I had to fully understand the mistake inside my head before I could try again. My first major setback took me six months to recover from. My third took nearly a year. I’d just go through the motions, unable to step into that 100% mindset for as long as it took to shake it off. While preparing for the end of the year, I believe it is critical to consider where those failures occurred, forgive yourself for them, and return to that win-the-next-one mindset.
You might have someone counting on you, like family, friends, or even employees, and you can’t let them down. You may only be counting on yourself, which is just as important, if not more.
What did you win? what did you lose? How can you win more in the new year? Write out what actions you will take to get to those wins. Mourn the losses, challenge yourself to confront how you lost, and then consider what you can do to improve. Get excited about your wins and know there are so many more to come.
Read Annual Goal Evaluations for more details on how to evaluate your year.
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