Congratulations! You’ve made it this far and we sincerely hope you keep going further. While we may not write about how to successfully avoid contracting the virus or how to shed that quarantine weight off, we will focus solely on making you more successful this year. New year’s resolution or not, it is the perfect time more than ever to reflect on the past, analyze the present and dream about the future. By creating goals and formulating a good plan on how to achieve them is the easiest way to control finances and reduce unwanted stress.
Review
Even if you find the last year painful to even think about, it is necessary in order to discover opportunities for the present and the future. You will need to ask critical questions about your personal and professional life such as “What did last year teach me?”, “Where are my best opportunities for financial growth?” or even “Which item brought me the most profit?” With the help of these questions above plus an accounting software, you can review what you earned and spend and therefore will help you look for ways to increase profit.
Analyze
After reviewing, you head on to the next step which is to analyze. You can run a balance sheet or update a personal financial statement in order to get a general idea of the status of your finances. You can enlist the help of professionals if looking at numbers overwhelm you. But the end goal here is to better manage your personal and business finances.
Dream
In order for goals to really stick, they will need to be meaningful to you, your family and the business. This aspect requires you to self-reflect and envision what you want out of life and what business and personal accomplishments would you be proud to achieve every so often. If you find this difficult and overwhelming still, you can focus on the weaker points and identify which aspects worry you the most. By focusing on this, you get to create possible solutions and ultimately, figure out the end-goal.
Build And Remember
Before you get to this part, you will need to undergo the three stages above. When you have all your goals laid out before you, the next step is to merger these to your financial plan or budget. Understanding your cash flow is important so in doing this, you might need to make little changes to meet your goals. Having realistic plans to turn your business and personal dreams into realities will go a long way to achieving success despite and in spite of what’s happening in the world.