By Emily Suess
At the end of one year and the start of another, small business owners often think about setting new goals for the business to encourage growth through marketing, advertising, and social media campaigns.
However, it’s just as important to work on setting individual goals. Some of these can be related to carrying out the overall goals of the business, but some of them should be individual goals that focus on self-improvement and developing new skills. Those, in turn, will still benefit your business.
Time Management
For you and your employees, managing time at work actually starts with managing your time outside of work. Instead of going overboard and trying to plan your entire year, try implementing one simple time management tool.
One habit that helps a lot is getting ready for your next work day before you go to sleep each night. Plan your breakfast, pack your lunch, identify what you’re going to wear, and put your purse or wallet and keys in a place where you can easily grab them.
The Work Reward: With less scrambling in the morning, you’ll walk into work ready to concentrate on the day’s tasks.
Continuing Education
Of course taking classes related to your current role is helpful for the business, but personal education goals don’t have to directly relate to the company to help you improve it. Marketers can take courses in biology and still bring something valuable to the workplace. So make it a personal goal to learn something—anything!—new.
The Work Reward: Enrolling in a class you enjoy—from water aerobics to ancient world history—can stimulate the mind and help you tackle work challenges in new ways.
Growing Your Savings
Stress and money are inextricably linked. Spend lots of money on spa trips to no avail? Try socking some extra cash away instead. Start small if you need to, saving just $10 or $15 a week. When you’ve got money in the bank to cover those incidentals, you’ve got one less thing to worry about.
The Work Reward: Peace of mind is valuable at work as well as at home, and the less you have to worry about, the more prepared you are to handle the inevitable bad day on the job.
Get Active
We all know that it’s important to stay active, but that doesn’t mean we don’t also need an extra nudge every now and then. Make it your personal goal to get up and stretch every hour, take the stairs, or walk and talk with a colleague the next time you brainstorm together.
The Work Reward: You’ll have more energy to face your days, and if you’re one of millions of Americans who spends 8+ hours a day at a desk, you can reduce your risk for heart disease other illnesses.
As small business owners, we talk a lot about work-life balance and how best to separate those areas of our lives. But perhaps it’s also important to see how each influences the other, improving both areas of our lives at the same time.