I admire anyone who has the will to improve themselves in some way. Whether it’s by losing weight, reading more or even smiling more often. Any improvement, big or small, is a step in the right direction. It is at this time of year that my social media feeds are full of posts stating such aims, I like to see the positivity, however it seems rather pointless if these aims aren’t being met in a month’s time. What’s going wrong?

Goal setting is a skill. You can set bad goals that you will fail to achieve. It isn’t always a matter of will power, sometimes people’s goals just don’t ‘tick the boxes’ we need to see them through.

Clarity

When it comes to setting a goal, clarity is key. You have to know what it is you want to achieve. “I want to lose weight”, isn’t clear enough. You’re mind doesn’t know exactly what it is trying to achieve, thus it doesn’t know how determined to be.

If you instead set a goal that said “I want to lose 3lbs this month.” You know what you want to achieve and by when. You are able to monitor your progress – if you’ve lost a pound after week one, you’re on track, if you haven’t lost anything after 2 weeks, you need to get a move on!

This approach also allows you to take advantage of guilt. If at the end of the month you haven’t met your target, you might feel guilty. Don’t feel bad about this. The guilt drive is powerful and can be used to push you even harder in month two.

If your goal is ambiguous, your feelings towards it will be as well. If your aims are clear, so is your focus.

Reason

Why do you want to achieve this goal? Sometimes a goal can be autotelic. However, often we set ourselves goals that are in place for some larger purpose, yet we rarely try to think what that purpose is. Why do you want to read more? Is it to learn more about a certain subject? Maybe you want to win your local pub quiz for once. Think about the wider picture and have a reason for why you are setting the goal. It gives you something separate from the work to aim for.

Think about an athlete running in the morning. Rarely do they get up early and go for a run just because they want to (unless they are a runner). Often it is because it is part of their training for their sport, they are doing it to achieve in their sport, not in the running itself, that part is just a stepping stone.

Commitment

Commitment means staying true to what you said you were going to do, long after the mood you said it in has left.

It is super easy to stand there at 11:55 on December 31^st, probably with a drink in your hand and say that you will go to the gym 3 times a week in 2016. It’s not so easy when you wake up at 8am to try and do it.

Why? Because we don’t think consistently. We have different moods.

This is the main issue with New Year’s resolutions. They are set as part of the hype. ‘The New Year is coming and it’s going to see new determination in me’. The truth is, when the New Year starts, NOTHING CHANGES. You don’t change as a person just because the earth has finished an orbit around the sun and so how can you expect yourself to suddenly have new motivation?

This is why New Year’s resolutions shouldn’t be set in the New Year. Turn around to yourself in the middle of March and set your goals. Do it in November as winter comes. Set your goals when you, yourself have decided you want to change. This way they are being set because there is motivation within you to improve, not because your mind is getting caught up in the New Year resolution’s fallacy.

My first term of second year at university ended rather abruptly due to the flooding in Lancaster! Despite being a week shorter than expected, it was still full of stories to tell and lessons to learn. Somehow I think it managed to be even better than my first term last year (yes, the first term of being a fresher! I thought that term would be impossible to beat!)

Let’s get straight to it – here are the two main things this term has taught me…

The right people can make any situation enjoyable

My days are full of lectures, working in the library, meetings and then probably back to the library. I can’t remember a single time I worked in the library last year, now I’m there until maybe 7/8pm consistently. These longer days are only made possible by spending them with the right people.

The thought of working in the library for 3-4 hours isn’t fun, but agreeing to go with a friend and then go for a drink after makes the evening as a whole good fun! Rushing from meeting to meeting can be exhausting, but if those meetings are with people you enjoy spending time with, it can help energise you. After a long day working, it can be difficult to give maximum effort at sport training, but having a good relationship with you team makes it easy!

Worry less, laugh more

It is so important to be able to laugh at yourself. You can’t control everything, not everything you do has to be taken seriously, sometimes you have to just relax and laugh.

Last month I agreed to be one of the faces of Global Entrepreneurship Week around the university. I was more than happy to help support the events and so I gladly went along to a photoshoot. A week or so later the sample promotion was sent over…

I looked over a rough copy, suggested a couple of changes and agreed for it to be printed.
A week later I saw my face everywhere! There were over 15,000 little versions of me all around the university. That alone would be too much for some people, it wouldn’t help that within the first day it was pointed out to me that in the printed flyers, it looked like I was wearing lipstick…

Alongside all the mini-me’s there was one, not so mini version….

I soon saw myself on a learning zone window – a version that was bigger than me.

A number of people asked what I thought, expressing they’d be embarrassed… I loved it!

I know the picture isn’t great and that I literally am everywhere, but I’d rather laugh about it and when I would receive pictures and messages like this…

… I certainly did laugh!

The main aim of a business is to make money.
The main aim of a business is to make a change.

Let’s see what you think! Once you’ve read this blog, come back and vote for what you think a business should aim for.

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When starting a business, what should you aim for? It seems as though the above two should go hand in hand, and they can do. However, the more I’ve looked around at people starting businesses, their core aims usually differ, siding with one of the two.

Making Money

A business is there to make profit, right?

Find a business model that will make money and implement it so that it slightly differs to what already exists so that it can capture customers and make money. The differentiation can come from operating in a different area, applying an already proven business model to a new product or even just undercutting competitors in price.

To me, this approach covers the stereotypical entrepreneur’s ‘first venture’. Countless stories of entrepreneurs selling drinks, sweets or small items in schools. The only thing new about this, is the location, and it works! The model is proven – if you have the motivation to implement it, you will see the rewards.

The approach certainly still exists in large corporations, I’d argue budget car companies take on this approach. They aren’t investing to invent new cars, they are simply taking what exists and making it available to a new section of customers.

In my opinion (or guess as I really haven’t experienced the development of these enough to know conclusively) the initial set up and implementation of these businesses can be promising. They may grow rather quickly. However, turning it from a solid business that has concurred the niche it set out to exploit, e.g. a new area, into a leader in the industry is extremely difficult. There may be hundreds or thousands of similar businesses. Why will you be the one to take the lead, to be the one to expand out of your niche? It is at this stage, that the ability of the individual entrepreneur takes precedence, as it is up to them to make the decisions that will ultimately determine the success of the company.

Making a Change

A business is there to make a change, of course?

Make a change to your local area, disrupt an industry or change how people interact with other people or things. A business should look to create something new that adds value or improves people’s lives by solving a problem.

This approach now covers the more current ‘Silicon Valley Entrepreneur’ stereotype. “What we’re creating will change how people pay for their shopping forever” or “we want to change how people interact online, we want to make communication personal again”. They can be very big statements, they can sound genius or crazy. They need visionaries to take the lead and a team full of passion to work on it when the results are non-existent.

These businesses can take years to bring in substantial results, most won’t succeed at all. However, in my opinion there is something rather special about these businesses – they’re exciting!
Both approaches have, and will always have, a place in the world of business – in fact they are both needed! But which approach is preferred, which approach do the business people of today aspire to follow? You tell me!