As with any New Year, comes a new set of resolutions! Creating goals and milestones are essential to to the success of any business. However as New Year’s resolutions go, while you want to set your sights high, it’s often easy to fall into the trap of creating too many unrealistic goals for oneself.
As part of the “Just Three Things” series, I’ve decided to limit my own New Year’s resolutions to just 3 major areas. Yes, they each have their own set of baby steps to take in order to achieve each task, but my theme for this year is to keep it in “threes”
2008 was a fantastic year for me, and I hope that 2009 will be that much better! So without further ado, below are the “three things” that I hope to achieve this year…
1. Achieve a Healthy Work / Life Balance
My primary goal for 2008 was to achieve “full time freelance status with a healthy work / life balance.” I surprised myself by reaching the full time freelance portion of this goal within 6 months – half the time I had planned for it to take!
My goals were a bit lofty, though, because although I was able to quit my day job, I still have a long way to go to strike a balance between my business and personal lives.
In 2009, my primary focus will be to finally achieve the ever elusive healthy work / life balance.
Yes, things are much less hectic now that I’m not juggling a full time job with running my own web design business. However the balance between the two is far from ideal.
To say that I’m a workaholic is a bit of an understatement! If I’m not in the office working, I’m with my family thinking about it. Not exactly what you would call healthy…
A major part in achieving this goal will be to focus on organization, productivity and time management in ALL areas of my life.
2. Increase Income by 25% Percent
Another one of my 2008 goals was to match the annual income of my day job. Making half that amount to have in savings was a major requirement before I allowed myself to officially take the plunge.
I was again very pleasantly surprised as I tallied up my 2008 freelance income to find that I had made 25% more with freelancing alone than what my annual income would have been if I kept the day job for all of 2008. Not a bad start to a solo career!
In 2009, I’d like to increase that income by an additional 25%.
In order to achieve this goal, I will need to place a heavy emphasis on marketing. I’ll need to come up with a better marketing plan – one that is consistent in order to avoid the inevitable feast vs famine cycle that is all too common with running your own business. I’ll also need to focus more on SEO – Search Engine Optimization. After all – what good is a web site if no one knows it exists?
Another aspect of this goal – and something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while – is to begin creating and distributing my own free and premium WordPress themes. While distributing free themes will act as a form of self promotion, premium themes will serve as additional (passive) income to aid in reaching this goal.
3. Increase Blog Subscribers to 3,000
My third major goal of 2008 was to start building this blog, and reach a subscriber base of 500. Due to networking on the social media sites (especially Twitter), as well as getting my feet wet in guest posting on other blogs (specifically Freelance Folder), I surprised myself by doubling my goal to over 1,000 subscribers!
In 2009, I’d like to triple this number to 3,000.
In order to achieve this goal, I will need to focus on writing more frequent, quality articles – at least on a consistent basis of once a week (it has been fairly sporadic to this point, with posts coming out anywhere from 2 to 5 times a month). I’ll be working more on guest posting on other blogs, as well.
First steps here will be to create a regular blogging schedule, and outlining future posts. I’ve got a few new ideas in store that you’ll be seeing in the coming months, so I hope you’ll stick around for those. And if you aren’t already subscribed, I hope you’ll subscribe to blog updates via RSS or via Email.
What Do You Want To Accomplish in 2009?
What are your business goals and resolutions for the New Year? Please share in the comments below. It’ll serve as a good reference point to come back and check on your progress throughout the year!
Here’s to 2009!
It goes without saying that I wish you ALL a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! May 2009 be all that you hope for, and more!
Ok I think I’ve worked out my top 3 resolutions for my jewelry biz.
1. Do as many local art/craft fairs as I can. This will be my 1st art fair season so I need to try as many as I can to see which will be the money makers or best exposure.
2. Make a profit. I would actually like to make a profit this year. It would be nice to say I made a profit in less than 2 years.
3. Build customer base to 50. Right now I’m at about 5 but hopefully with the 3 online selling venues & all those art fairs I can make this one happen soon.
Great post. Thanks for making me sit down & actually get a plan together. 🙂
I know these aren’t specifically business or design related, but I want to see another country (saw Russia in 08), improve my family relationships, and get more rest.
Grats on achieving some of your goals in 2008, I’m sure you’ll achieve more than what you’ve set out to do.
As far as I’m concerned, here are 3 things that I MUST do:
1) Setup my own blog + portfolio.
2) Get 5 clients for the month of Jan. (I know, not great, but it’s a goal).
3) Be able to program anything in JS / PHP in my sleep by the end of 2009.
So far all my work has been done in Photoshop and Notepad / Web Developer [firefox plugin] (Basic html / css). Just recently caught the jquery bug.
A happy new year you to anyway.
Great Post!
For me I think this year will be:
1. establish and maintain multiple income streams aka “thrive” not “survive” on freelancing
2. Be able to fully code w/ jquery and maybe even release a plugin
3. get back into my illustration along w/ design.
I am a new reader but i am definitely inspired.
I’m very glad that you had a successful 2008! I really admire your work, the level of detail that goes into your layouts is wonderful. Specifically, your shadowing techniques.
As far as my goals go:
1. Become a jQuery Rockstar
2. Learn to unleash the power of WordPress
3. Figure out “what’s next” in my career path
I never usually make new years resolutions because i never usually keep them. These are good ones though and if you are dedicated and keep to your goals, then it should be a good year for you.
Hi Selene! I just read through this post and couldn’t help but tell you about an eBook I bought from my favorite non-design related blog. I don’t ususally promote anything but I’m telling you, this eBook has been AWESOME for me in helping me reach my goals, whether they’re my daily goals or yearly goals. So check it out if you want, but I defnitely recommend it if you’re looking for a really simple and easily applicable system of productivity, simplifying and balancing your life!! Ok enough of the build up, email me if you’re interested and I’ll send you the damn thing! 🙂 sarah@huddydesign.com
Take care, Selene and good luck on all your goals for ’09!
-Sarah
Hey, now that’s a nice idea – chunk it down, chunk it up. I can handle three big ideas, better than overwhelming myself with a huge list. I’m going to write my goals like that this year.
Thanks, some value there.
Warwick Foster
Oz
Selene..as always you’re post are inspiring and full of infornation…my goals are on trak..maybe I have relooked at them with the recession….what you’re view on the recession…Thanks..
Hi Selene,
You’ve set realistic goals. Hope you achieved them.
I wish to add my views to the conversation:
It’s so easy to say that “I just don’t have enough time!” or “I’m just too busy.” But if we learn to mange your time effectively than anyone can achieve a balance life even if you are very busy. Being busy is completely different from being productive.
Thanks for sharing.