A Different Perspective on New Year’s Resolutions

Is it just me, or do we experience the same thing every new year? The clock strikes midnight and for a brief moment, everyone (me included), has a whole new outlook on life.

• Lose weight – Isn’t January the worst?
• Getting organized – Staying organized
• Live life to its fullest – Who doesn’t?
• Save money – Great!
• Travel more – But only if we’re not trying to save money

Fun fact:  According to the New York Times, 80% of New Year resolutions fail in the first 30 days with only 8% of adults successfully fulfilling the New Year Resolution for the entire year.

Setting goals, self-improvement or creating habits doesn’t have to be based on the position of the sun or any particular date. Progress is a lifestyle, a behavior, skill, and decision we actively choose. As Stephen R. Covey, the author of one of my all-time favorite books, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People would say, we have to “Begin with the end in mind”. Before deciding on a resolution, or any goal, three things need to be realized.

1. There has to be a reason or something that inspires, excites or motivates you to want it.
2. There has to be a final destination with pre-defined milestones throughout your journey. A big WIN is just a bunch of small wins along the way.
3. You must understand what makes a habit. (Trigger / Action / Reward). Habits take time, they can be difficult to master. In the end, the harder we work for something, the bigger reward. 

Okay, okay… So I have a confession. 

This blog post, the 4th blog post in our company history, is a New Year resolution and a very small piece of our company’s strategic plan. So what makes this resolution different from any other? To start, it’s currently December 11th at 2:37 pm, 21 days before the new year. As soon as this draft is done, I’ll be heading home to hang out with my son for the evening because even the most lofty of resolutions won’t interfere with family time.

Click Call Sell currently has 14 employees and has been perpetually at capacity for the past 12 months  while maintaining a 97% retention rate. We don’t follow up on leads because we can’t. We don’t actively market, because we can’t. Which brings us to the first motivator for setting a goal.

“There has to be a reason or something that inspires, excites or motivates you to want it.”

The most effective way to grow a company is from within through building processes and getting the right people in the right seats. Being at capacity means we’re unable to support current demand. What’s even worse is that we’re not even doing the basics of follow-up, the thing we teach and preach to every client. What inspires, excites and motivates me is being able to create and fulfill the demand and needs of our current and future clients. Raising capacity through increasing efficiencies, systems and personnel is both an incredible honor and responsibility we are ready to embrace. Which leads us to the 2nd realization.

“ There has to be a final destination with milestones along the way.” 

The final destination is the completion of our annual content calendar. With our internal processes complete, employees trained and company infrastructure dialed-in, it’s time to execute on deploying marketing, education and information aimed at helping home service entrepreneurs crush it! Our milestones are set quarterly with four(4) medias. 

1. YouTube (Subscribe, Service Brand Secrets) – Service Brand Secrets
2. The CCS Blog (Get Connected)
3. Facebook (Give us a Like & follow for more incredible content this year!)
4. Automated emails (Get on the list)

Finally we have the 3rd realization, understanding the components of a habit. According to Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit, habits are made up of three(3) components

1. A trigger: An event that starts a behavior. It could be a new month, a new quarter, a new year or an oral fixation that makes you hungry, want to chew gum, bite your nails or smoke a cigarette. 
2. An action: The act of doing the thing.
3. The reward: How you feel when you’re done. Rewards can be internal or external. Think dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin for internal rewards and recognition, financial, or results for external. 

For Click Call Sell, the trigger is the new year. All this work, these behaviors and habits are starting before the year begins to prepare for and launch on the new year. The action is setting all this into motion. Throughout this year, we will have 52 blogs, 156 Facebook posts, 31 emails and 15 YouTube videos strategically planned, pre-written, designed, posted and ready to deploy. The reward is both internal and external. It feels good adding value and helping small business owners dominate their dreams with the bi-product being to add and serve more Click Call Sell clients along the way. 

When it comes to setting goals, use whatever you need to set the habit in motion. If it’s a New Year, great. If it’s urgency or necessity, great. Just know that achieving your desired end result is much more likely if you train yourself to be a master at creating good behaviors, setting meaningful goals and remembering to celebrate the small wins along the way.

So here’s to your success on this brand new day and this brand new year!

PS: Comment below your goals. Let’s hold each other accountable.