Ending the year strong and with insights that fire up your messaging

The end of the year is a great time to recalibrate and re-align. Find out more what you need to look at to end your year on a high!

What do you see and feel when you reflect on this year?

I find it incredibly important to end the year strong and start the new year with a vision and a plan to make it even better than the previous one.

For me, ending the year strong is not so much about setting New Year’s resolutions on the spur of the moment.

It’s the “without planning” aspect that leads us to forget our New Year’s resolutions. Spontaneous ideas often only fleetingly enter our minds. They often don’t even make it past the hour (probably because there was no time to come up with something that is focused on a significant and meaningful change).

Spontaneity is a great thing – but if followed, it can lead you down the wrong track.

When ending the year, I like to look at four areas that drive my next year’s success:

4 Areas you must look at for planning a strong next year

YOU
YOUR CLIENTS & COMMUNITY
YOUR OFFER
YOUR BRAND

These areas are the foundation for all your messaging and they have an impact on your strategy, direction and how you plan for the next year.

Let’s look at them in a little more detail

YOU – where you stand now and where you want to go

There’s one thing that I recommend you do at the end of the year: a social media and mental detox.

Your mind gets so much clearer without the constant noise of social media and the habitual input that we create during our “normal” working days (e.g. calendar reminders, meetings, routine tasks…).

Give your mind some breathing space so that it can recover and recalibrate.

But before you switch off, I always review the past year and get a clear picture of where I am standing right now.

This review includes:

What skills did I use that moved the needle for me and how?
What skills do I need to develop to move the needle even further and faster?
What were the topics that were most important for me and resonated well with my community?
Did I achieve last year’s goals? (personal development goals, physical goals, family goals, business goals etc.) If not – why? Was it poor performance, change or anything else that prevented me from achieving my goals?
What could I have done differently to achieve better outcomes?
How and where have I grown – and what impact does that have on my purpose, vision, mission etc.?
What would I like to focus on next year?
What (activities, habits…) do I need to let go because they don’t serve me any longer? And do I need to fill that void or do I just want to create more space?

I find it important to view the new year as a gift of opportunities that we should value and make the best possible use of. Assessing the past year and creating a plan for the next is my way of acknowledging the wins, losses, struggles, successes, and developments so that I can create more meaningful and purposeful goals for the next year.

It’s also important to check last year’s progress against your long-term vision. Are you still on track, or do you need to change direction?

After all, you are running a business and a cumulation of ad hoc actions will never get you as far as a well-thought-out plan.

Acknowledging change and development is not only important when looking at yourself but also when looking at your community and audience.

YOUR CLIENTS – what has changed for them?

The dynamics of change don’t only have an impact on us but also on everyone else around us. Our clients are no different.

To set new goals for yourself, you also need to understand how your audience has changed and how that change impacts you and your business.

You could ask similar questions like the ones above about your audience. It’s important to be aware of how their narrative has changed, what topics they now need to hear about, what their new priorities, pain points, dreams, and struggles are.

All that has an impact on what goals you are setting for yourself but also on your offer(s) and whether you need to align existing offers with new insights, create new offers or discontinue those that are no longer relevant.

Which brings me to…

YOUR OFFER – insights & lessons learned

Change is a constant in our lives. Our environment changes, we change, our clients change – and all of that can have an impact on our offers.

I like to go through my offers step-by-step and think about things that can be improved, added or taken out of the offer package.

Is there a better way how I could deliver my offers more effectively? Is there something that makes it easier for my clients to work through my offer? Is there a way to be more concise or increase the impact? Is there any way how I can create a better learning experience?

At the same time, I also want to acknowledge what worked really well and celebrate the wins that my clients (and I) have achieved – because I am learning from every single client and really value the knowledge they share with me.

It’s also a good time to plan new offers and learn from this year’s client needs and desires - and decide whether I want to discontinue offers that are not going so well.

And lastly…

YOUR BRAND – reflecting growth & development

Your brand flows from your personality and considering the change and development that you have gone through, your brand might need a little alignment too.

I have just given my brand guidebook a total overhaul and realised that I desperately needed to update all my brand statements and my visual design.

In the second half of the year, my writing has changed quite significantly because I re-orientated myself and saw that my purpose, vision, mission, and value statements needed to be aligned with the development I had gone through.

This development is very obvious in my content and I needed to reflect that in my brand guidebook so that I stay on brand throughout all the touchpoints that I have with my community. It was also important for me to acknowledge my development and how this impacts my clients.

Another great thing about an annual review is that your growth becomes tangible. You can see and feel the difference!

Now, all that is left is to plan out the next year. I am looking forward to a bit of quiet time over the holidays so that I can plan my next year.

Ending the year strong leaves me with the desire and motivation to start the new year with even more momentum.

I hope that your year ends on a high – and if you need support to make that happen and bring some clarity to your intent and messaging for the new year – just send me a message and we can talk about how I can support you!