The new year is right around the corner; however, you don’t have to wait until the start of the year to begin your journey to achieving your goals. Many people wait until the new year to start working towards their goals. Although January 1st does designate a new year, you don’t have to use that as your starting point for a goal. In fact, you can begin anytime. Once you have thought of your goal, you can get started right away. By starting now, you not only have the motivation to strive towards your goals and make 2023 a great year, but you also have a head start before any of your competition. Here’s how to get started.

How to Start Achieving Your Goals 

Set goals

The first step is to set your goals. What would you like to accomplish in the year ahead that you didn’t accomplish this year? Were you able to achieve all of your goals this year? Were you able to achieve your goals easily this year or did you encounter a challenge that set you off track? 

If you’re able to achieve your goals easily, next year, make them more ambitious. Or if you found achieving your goals challenging this year you have two options: 1. you could break it up into smaller goals to achieve in the year ahead, or 2. you could make the goal slightly less ambitious and more realistic and in line with what you believe you can achieve by the end of the year. Perhaps you wish to take your business in a different direction this year. Maybe you took a course or a training program and learned some new skills or ideas to use with your network.

Incorporate what you’ve learned into your goals for the year ahead. For example, perhaps someone on your team has found success hosting events every season where their network brings someone that they know to the event. You could make a goal to host four such events during the year. These events will not only help you serve your existing network but will also put you in touch with new potential team members and customers to serve as well. 

SMART Goals

When setting goals it’s essential to make them SMART, that is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based.

Specific: You want your goal to be as clear and specific as possible. Be sure to include every detail. For example, saying “I want to add new people to my network” is a good start to a goal, but it is not a smart goal. A smart goal would be “I want to add four new people to my network every month this year.” See the difference? You can make it even smarter by saying, “I would like to add four new customers, four new prospects, and four new team members to my network each month.” See how specific that is? If you want to achieve your goals, you have to get specific.

Measurable: it’s important to be able to measure your goals. You want to see how close you are to achieving your goals and the only way to do that is to make sure that your goals are measurable. That means using numbers. How many prospects would you like to add to your network? How much would you like to boost your sales this year, or even this month? Measurable goals allow you to see if you are on track or falling off track. 

Attainable: attainable goals are ones that you are able to achieve given your skills and your situation at present. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t ambitious, it just means that they are in line with what you are able to achieve at this moment in your career. One of the mistakes that many network marketers make is setting goals that are too ambitious for their skills at the moment. They may say they want to increase their network to 5,000 people by the end of the year. This may not be attainable at this moment in time; however, it may be realistic over the next five years. When a network marketer is just starting out, they have to create goals that are attainable for them at the time.

Realistic: what is a realistic goal? It is a goal that you are able to achieve. You may have the skills to increase your sales 30% each month this year, however, it may not be realistic in all situations. For example, if you are struggling to grow your network, it may not be realistic to close a large percentage of deals every month. That doesn’t mean that you can’t set a goal to increase your sales, it just means that you may need to create a more realistic percentage that you are sure that you would be able to close.

Time-based: this means that you give yourself a deadline to achieve your goals. In most situations, this will be December 31st, 2023. However, if you are creating shorter-term goals, say quarterly goals, your deadline would be the end of the quarter. Having time attached to your goal gives you a target on which to achieve the goal.

Prioritize your business

Many people say ambitious goals, but then they forget to do one thing: prioritize their business. It is difficult to achieve the ambitious goals that you’ve set for yourself and your business if you don’t make your business a priority. Your goals aren’t just going to achieve themselves. However, many network marketers set ambitious goals in January only to forget about them a month or two later. Why? It’s because they’ve forgotten to prioritize their business in the first place. What does prioritizing your business mean? It means setting aside time each day to work on your business.

We’ve created the Power Hour to help network marketers prioritize their businesses. They set aside an hour each day to work on their business. Now, it doesn’t always take up the full hour. Most network marketers can finish reaching out to their networks in less than half an hour. Some use the remaining time for personal development, and others simply call it a day. Whatever you choose to do, make sure that you’re setting aside time to work on your business each day.

Do the work toward your goals

Your business won’t just work on itself. Wouldn’t that be great if it did? If all you did was set goals and magically everything happened exactly the way you wanted it to. In reality, you have to do the work on your business. It is on you to grow your business. You must reach out to the people in your network and continue building relationships with them. It’s up to you to get in touch with them on a regular basis to check in with them and listen for a need that you can fill. Ask them for introductions to people in their networks who could appreciate the service that you provide. If you want to succeed you must put in the work. 

Many network marketers look around and see successful business people. It’s a myth that success happens overnight and it’s automatic. In reality, it takes a lot of hard work, energy, and dedication to your business to grow it into a thriving network marketing business. However, is worth it in the end, especially when you reach your goals and achieve success.

Embrace challenges

Challenges are part of the business. They happen to any business, no matter what you sell or the service you provide. Challenges are inevitable. However, what isn’t inevitable is how you react to those challenges. Of course, it’s easy to get down and discouraged when a challenge arises. It’s only human to feel discouraged from time to time. However, the most successful people are able to look at these challenges and embrace them for what they are: an opportunity to learn and grow in business and in life. Sure, they may feel frustrated at first, but then they dust themselves off, accept the challenge, and see what lesson they can glean from it. Challenges are opportunities to learn something new. They not only test what you’re made of, but they can also renew the faith that you have in yourself and in your business.

Reward yourself

Achieving your goals is much easier when you have a reward to look forward to. Many people get so focused on achieving their goals, that they forget to reward themselves once they’ve achieved it. Instead, they focus on the next goal and what will happen once they achieve that. Although it’s important to achieve your goals, it’s also important to celebrate the achievement. The promise of a reward at the end of the goal can create motivation when you need it the most.  

Teamzy can help you get a head start on 2023

We create a Teamzy to help network marketers build strong, thriving network marketing businesses in an easy and fun way. Your dashboard is your portal to help you see who to contact each day, see how close you are to achieving your goals, and access training programs that can help you increase your skills. When you’re setting your goals for the coming year, be sure to log into Teamzy and let us help you set smart goals that you know you’ll be able to achieve in the year ahead. Then, throughout the year, continue to check in with your goals and use teams to see how close you are to achieving them. If you are not using Teamzy, what are you waiting for? Click here to learn more.