Is it just me, or does anyone else have this intense need to stab themselves in the eye with a spoon every time they see a “New Year, new you!” headline this time of year?

Extreme, I know. But surely I am not alone 😉

And I’m not saying that I don’t love a new year.

The sense of a new start, clean slate and the added bonus of an extra generous helping of motivation can be a really powerful thing.

But I hate the pressure that this whole “new you” thing puts on everyone.

Especially us business owners (dude, we are under enough pressure already!)

And what is so bad about the old you/me anyway? I mean I’ve been the old me for nearly 35 years and I am doing Ok?

So instead, for 2017 I have a new motto, you can feel free to adopt it too if you like, and it’s this;

Imperfectly In Motion (it makes a snappy hashtag too – #imperfectlyinmotion)

So rather than striving for perfection (which doesn’t exist), and then beating myself up when I don’t achieve that crazily unrealistic massive goal, instead I am just aiming to put one un-manicured foot in front of the other towards my big end goal.

From my experience that’s the best way to get to where you are going anyway. 

And what does this all have to do with the price of goldfish in Malaysia?

Not much, but it is a big part of my 3-step new year business rituals, and that is what this blog post is all about.

So what are these three rituals, and why do I bother to do them?

Well I’ll start with the why.

For me, these rituals sort of organically started evolving around year 3 of my business (this is year 10.. yikes!)

I wanted a way… no a system (I am an INFJ for anyone who speaks Myers Briggs, so I do love a system!) to really wrap up the year.

To make sure I acknowledged my growth, achievements and lessons, too (it can be so easy to forget what you’ve actually done over the 12-months!).

And then to close off the year and prep for a bigger and better one to follow.

And over the past five or so years I have fiddled around with a few different “rituals” and have come to settle on the following 3 steps.

Step 1 – Business Resolutions – aka quarterly core focuses

As many of you would know I am a big believer in picking one thing to focus on, and just getting obsessed with it  until you ace it, and then you move on.

And usually I try to assign one focus to each quarter (in their rough order of importance).

How I come up with these focuses?  And better yet how to I create a plan to make them happen?

But for me, this year, this is what I think is going to make the biggest difference to myself and my business.

Q1 – Refresh & re-new

The first quarter of the year is all about updating pretty much everything. I am re-designing my blog, and all my courses too (updating content, re-doing videos, making the whole thing easier and faster etc..)

This is a BIG project, but one that should make hanging out with me an even better experience for both my students and readers, so I think it’s well worth it!

Q2 – Work/life balance – aka No working weekends!! 

Yes, I need to make this a focus. And yes, it will probably take until about mid year before I can really have this in place. So what THIS means for me is that I have a quarter to really bunker down, clean up a lot of old projects and processes. Make sure my team are all fully trained up, and then I should be able to step back a little (ideally I’d like to only work half a day on Wednesdays too, but baby steps!)

Q3 – Scale it up!

By quarter three, everything should be set up and in place, and I should be feeling refreshed and ready so I can really start to ramp things up. So look out for some bigger promotions, challenges, and I’ll be testing out a few different traffic and media channels too.

Q4 – Time to shine

Look, I am a bit of an massive introvert.

I love hiding behind my computer, and working quietly in the background creating and testing new things.

This is my happy place.

But I realised late last year that if I really want to be able to help as many people as I can, in the most meaningful way that I can (which I do!), then I have to stop hiding so much.

Plus once I have handed back a lot of my workload, and finished these bigger projects in quarters 1-3 I should have more energy and mental space to be able to deal with the Introverts idea of hell… putting myself out there more.

So this will be my quarter to start looking in to events, speaking, guest pod casting and more.

You will be sick of the sight of me in no time (so I apologise in advance for that!)

Step 2 – Theme or motto

Once I have my resolutions or core focusses in place, I like to take a step back and try to choose an overall motto or theme that really sums up the focus for the year.

For 2016 it was nourish, as I spent a lot of time working on growing and nurturing my community, and also creating programs (aka the new Blog Squad and Boss Squad programs) to really best serve them.

And as I already mentioned 2017 is going to be #imperfectlyinmotion, because it’s not about making any massive changes (that was what i did in 2015!!) but instead it’s all about moving forward step-by-step, towards my end goal, and not letting that damn perfectionism get in my way!

Step 3 – Celebrate 2016 – write 100 things you rocked!

This last step I borrowed from my friend Denise Duffield-Thomas.

And this really is the best way to celebrate the 365 days of hard-work, will power, wins and lessons that made up the previous year.

What you do is you sit down with a piece of paper (or you can do it online, but I like to physically write them out), and you write down 50 things that you rocked in 2016.

So that is 50 pats on the back, brags, wins etc.. both big and small.

They can be massive things like “doubled my traffic” or smaller things like getting a lovely message from a follower, or finally getting your Instagram scheduler to work.

Some of mine include:

• Closing down my first blog (yes, that is a win!)
• Increased revenue by 35%
• Hired two new amazing staff members (love you Maggie and Kim!)
• Launched the SBB Magazine
• Launched the Blog Squad (and most of the original members are still in there and loving it and getting great results, so big self high-five for that!)
• Bought and paid for my first ever business class long-haul flight (I felt so baller on that plane!!)
• Discovered and implemented some awesome new tools (I do love a bloody tool or ten!)
• Planned out my next 12-months of blog posts, social and launches in December (and am going to batch create them in Feb!)
• Set up and stuck to a budget (finally…!)
• Paid off my last (kinda jumbo!) credit card.
• Moved in with my love and his two mini peoples (and am totally loving being the unofficial step mumma)

You can read the full how-to instructions on Denise’s site, luckybitch.com here.

So, there you have it.

My new year business + blog rituals all in a nutshell.

Do you have any new year business rituals? I’d love to hear them!