The holidays are upon us, and too many times we find ourselves procrastinating during the last fiscal quarter of the business year.  Have you evaluated the success of your annual goals? How much time and research have you put into setting new goals for next year?  What is the state of your office and equipment?  Will you be making any changes? Are there expenses this year that you will not need to add to your budget for next year?  Are there additional major expenses that you will need to be planning for?  What is your marketing plan going to entail for the next twelve months?  These are just a few of the questions that are waiting for you to answer in the upcoming weeks.

What inevitably happens is that we feel like we have a lot of time to complete these final tasks, but in reality we have very little time between October 1 and December 31.  Between holiday closures and holiday parties, the actual work days are significantly reduced.  If you want to have a successful 2014, you have to begin planning for it now!

Here are 5 incredibly important tasks to complete by December 31!

1. Revisit successes from 2013.  Are there identifiable actions that made the difference in your success this year? Are these actions transferable in other areas of your business?  If so, plot a time frame in your calendar to implement action steps in the first or second quarter of 2013.
2. Revisit failures from your 2013 experiences.  What are the lessons you learned from your failures?  What are the specific actions that led to the downfall, and can you identify the same type of potential course in other areas of your business? Plan for an intervention to prevent experiencing the same type of failures during the next fiscal year.
3. Contemplate how the year end of your business will look this time next year.  What will be the major difference between the last quarter of 2013 and 2014?  Have you set the appropriate goals in place to get you there?
4. Plan for success.  Some of the most successful achievers meet their goals because they write them down, dissect them into their simplest form, and set dates to meet every little baby step along the way.  One of the most valuable tips they share is to read through your goals EVERY DAY.
5. Get another person’s perspective on your achievements for 2013.  Talk to a business coach, mentor, financial advisor or other business professional.  You may be very excited that you ended the year with a great deal of money or may be concerned because you sold to less people this year than last.  A professional can help ask questions you may have not thought about.  It’s nice to have a bit of money in the bank at the end of the year, however if you have a large amount of credit card debt as well, there may be another perspective on how successful this year really was for you.  You may have had less clients, however if the quantity of purchase from those clients has significantly increased, you have successfully gain the trust that your company can handle large orders and indeed, you had a fantastic year.

Don’t head into the New Year blind.  If you plan your time, thoughts, and actions wisely during the last three months of this year, you will be setting yourself and your business up for an incredible 2014!