Last year, I wrote my first annual review, which was insprired by one of my favorite writers, James Clear. He still does his own annual review, which you can read here. I found that the exercise he gave helped me to get 2015 off to a great start. I’m even more excited for this year’s review and for the plans I’ve made for 2016. Here we go!
Social media reach: 3/5 Overall, I’m pleased with the numbers aspect of my reach, but in terms of year-over-year growth, I could have done much better. However, I feel much better about the quality of my social media network. While the process was cumbersome at times, I did my best to make sure that every new follower or connection was greeted with a polite welcome. Full disclosure – I do take advantage of automation tools like Zapier and Buffer to manage my communities. Even with the use of automation, I’ve made some real connections online that have resulted in great personal and professional benefit.
Consistency: 3/5 This is an area in which I made a serious effort to improve. I developed a few new habits that have helped me tremendously in this area.
1) I write at least 100 words a day. This is a small enough number to never be intimidating, but large enough to ensure that I get a decent amount of content out the door.
2) I read 20 pages a day. This came along a little later in the year, which helped me to recover from a slow reading year. More on this below.
3) I experimented with Corey Gregory’s #SquatEveryday plan. This was fun for a number of reasons. For one, my friends and family got a kick out of my daily Instagram posts and rarely missed their chance to tease me for it. And of course, I made some serious gains in the gym.
These three habits, which I plan to continue in 2016 made for a much improved year for consistency.
Blogging: 3/5 I’m calling this one a push from 2014 to 2015. While I continued to write at least one blog per week, I wasn’t as consistent with my business’ blog as I need to be. It was admittedly difficult to prioritize my personal writing endeavors of the content needs of my clients. This is something I’m expecting to improve upon by sticking to a pre-determined content calendar that I’ve been working on for some time now.
Reading: 2/5 Until I developed the habit of reading 20 pages per day in September 2015, I struggled to make the time to read. In addition to my new habit, I’m planning to improve this area by focusing more on retention and less on just getting more books checked off my list. I have started taking notes in simple notebooks, which has helped me to better apply what I’ve read.
Focus: 3/5 This is a complicated category. In terms of focus on specified objectives throughout the year, I’d give myself a 4/5. But if we’re talking about focusing on one task at a time and avoiding multi-tasking, I would barely register a 2/5. This is an area where I need to do some serious work.
Finally, I’ll leave off with a few areas in which I plan to work hard on in 2016:
1) Process, process, process. I’m convinced that this is what separates good businesses from great ones. Fly-by-nighter’s from multi-generational success stories. It’s all about implementing core processes for creating reproducible successes. I’ll be working very hard to document my core processes and making them a habit organization-wide.
2) With building my team last year, I gained a tremendous level of experience due to the fact that I had to execute every level of both my own projects and my clients’. This simply isn’t sustainable if my growth plans for this year are going to be reachable. I’ll have to make a concerted effort to build my team with like-minded marketers who are excited about building a great business.
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