What are your 2014 goals?

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.
– Tony Robbins

Goal planning is an important part of any business. You need to know what benchmarks you want to meet (or surpass) and everything you do needs to work towards achieving that goal.

We are now at the end of 2013. How are your goals looking? Did you meet them? Surpass them? Did you miss some of them?  I did. Personally I wanted to participate in 4 5k runs this year, and I ended up doing 3. I know that’s not business-related but it’s a goal I missed.

Not only does goal setting give you something to reach for the year, the underlying benefits are good for you and your business also.

Goal setting provides you direction in your business. 

Having something to work towards will help you to know how to direct your business for the year. Want to reach a higher sales volume? Make a goal to commit a certain amount of time each month for lead generation.

Goal setting helps with planning.

Like providing direction, goals help with your planning. Once you know what your goal is and what direction you need to go, you can now plan out your course of action. Like the example above, if you want a higher sales volume, you know you will have to commit X amount of hours each month to lead generation. Now you plan how you are going to use that time and how you are going to do it.

Goal setting is motivating for both you and your business.

I’ll be honest here – we all need motivation… constantly. Having goals in place will give you something to work for. What better motivation than knowing on December 31 (or sooner in some cases) you did what you set out on January 1?

Goal setting makes you take responsibility & makes you accountable.

Having goals is fun, but if you don’t make them, someone has to be accountable and take responsibility.  It’s part of being a business owner (and adult, as a matter of fact). If you make them, awesome! If not, know you have to answer to your employees, boss or yourself why you didn’t achieve them. It’s the downside of goal setting, but it gives you a foundation to build off of for the next year.

Have you set your goals for 2014? I sat down and wrote them out last night and I’ll share some of them with you so you can keep me accountable!

2014 Goals

1. Increase  revenue over 2013.
2. Creative passive income streams in the form of downloadable coaching sessions and/or an e-book.
3. Syndicate my blog into 2-3 additional blog syndication sites.
4. Host at least 1 guest blog on my website.
5. Restart my Social Media Q&A video series.
6. Spend more time on Google Plus.

How about you? Share with me some of your goals for 2014 and let’s keep each other accountable!