 New Year's will be here before you know it, so we're talking seven New Year's resolutions for entrepreneurs here on the journey. Wonderful time. Alex, we're back. Oh yeah, okay. Well, we're talking New Year's resolutions, so it's time to hit reset on not just you but your business. Yeah, and now is the time to basically evaluate your last year of business and set some goals to improve the next year. If you're having a hard time figuring out which resolutions you want to take on, that's what we're here for. We're going to help you out with some of our seven best resolutions that you could implement. Starting with one of the more important ones I think that everyone should do is pay yourself a salary. Sometimes we forget about it. We're constantly paying our employees or just random just expenses that we have. We forget that, hey, we need to make money too. We don't want to just scrape whatever it is at the very end and setting a goal of paying yourself a salary does a couple things for you. One, you get paid and two, it helps pushing the mindset of how much extra you need to make per month or per year to ensure that your salary is paid. Our next resolution is to hire help. I know for me I have a really difficult time really delegating out different responsibilities. I feel the need to take on everything myself to make sure it's perfect. Only we can make it perfect. Yeah, we're all perfectionists here, so it's really important to hire help because it may seem like, oh no, I'm losing revenue by paying someone else, but it's actually the first step to increasing your revenue. Yeah, I know. I struggle with this. That delegation and really having someone else do your work is tough to just start, right? We know our business at the back of our hand. We know how it's supposed to be done, but I know firsthand that outsourcing some of that work and delegating some of that work to employees or contractors really just goes the extra mile. And I've started doing that with my web design business where if it's not such a heavy task or needs my full attention, I'll go on sites like Upwork and hire out people to essentially do those tasks for me. And like you said, you might think they're going to be losing money, but it's given me so much more time to go out and find more work and make more money and continue to just hire other people to help you and then turn you get more business because you have more time and you're growing and it just, it all works out. Now our next resolution that you should set this year is to not work on vacation. I know I'm guilty of doing that my days off or my times where I go on a trip with family or whatever it looks like. I'm usually checking email, maybe doing some random work when I have free time and it doesn't end up being free time. So set aside some time to actually have a vacation. Where are you going to vacation next year? I'm actually going to Cancun here in just a little bit and I am definitely not going to bring work with me. It's all about setting those boundaries. You wouldn't want to work for a boss that wouldn't allow you to focus on your vacation. So don't do that to yourself. And speaking of not working, that brings us to our next resolution. Don't work on the weekends. It's really critical to your mental health, you know, to give yourself that break. It's called a work week for a reason. Take those couple days to really recharge, reset your mind and get ready for the next week. Yeah, you're not wrong. I know we all get just stuck in that trap of I've got so much work I have to do. So I have to basically use all my time to work. Those Saturdays and Sundays are your time to just reset and relax and you'll actually find that you're going to be more productive during that Monday through Friday. So you give yourself that rest and you set a timeline of when you can work. What is it like Parkinson's law, the amount of time you give yourself will basically fill that up. So I know like back in high school or in college when I had a paper due that was due in say three weeks, it would take me three weeks to do that paper or if I have a project with my clients that takes eight weeks, it's going to take eight weeks for me to finish it because I've given myself that time. Now, if I say, cool, I'm going to work seven days a week Saturday, Sunday, it's going to take me all that time to get a project done that probably would have happened if I said cool Monday through Friday, that's what I'm working and then it's done. So again, it's all about setting those boundaries. And if your work week is a little bit different, more unique and you have to work on weekends or your business is open on weekends, you can either delegate and have other people work on those weekends, or you can always just take a Monday and Tuesday and consider that to be your weekend. Right. And the more you really add to your clients, your customers, the more they're going to respect your time because we're all human. We don't expect everyone to work all the time and you set those boundaries with your clients, your customers that hey Monday through Friday or Tuesday through Saturday, whatever your hours are, we're going to try to keep it within that because they're not going to be going to be bothered on their weekend. I strongly believe that everyone needs at least one lazy day a week, so. At least. Take your lazy day. The next resolution we have for you is stick to processes. We have processes in our business for a reason such as onboarding a new client. You have to go through A, B, and C before they're onboarded. But sometimes when things are urgent, we try to cut corners and that whole onboarding experience that you might have may be smushed down to a few days versus the week it was. Whatever your process is, you need to make sure you stick to it to ensure that there's consistency across the board. Yeah, trust the process. And here's a quick new year's tip. Outline those processes in a document or, you know, a manual. So that way it's written down. You can share that with all of your, you know, teammates or employees. And that way it really holds you accountable. Looking back on this year, have you taken on a few projects that you wasn't really in your wheelhouse? You kind of did because you might have needed the business or someone asked you to. Well, this news resolution is to refer away leads that are just not for you. If it's not your service, it's not your business. Really create a network of like-minded people that you can refer that away to maybe get a kickback in. I know when I do my web design and someone needs a logo. Now I can probably make a logo, but it's going to take me a ton of time. It's not really going to be what's best for them. I refer it to my friend Anthony and he gets the service. I get a bit of a kickback for referring him and everyone's the wiser. But the more you refer away, the leads that don't work for you, the more that you have time to focus on the stuff that is right for you and really grow your business this year. Yeah, and I'm sure they'll appreciate that reference. So, you know, whenever it comes along that they find a client that would be a great fit for you, they will return the favor. And they have many times. And our seventh resolution is pretty obvious, but it's definitely worth mentioning, be profitable. Yeah, and I think this is something to go, of course I want to be profitable, right? I'm learning a business. But really, it's just a mindset shift that you want to have going into the year. You want to have that mindset of, I'm going to be profitable, really speak it into existence, make it reality, and to keep that on your mind and keep focused, because this is your year. You have these resolutions, you have this business, you have everything that it takes. Now it's just time to get that mindset right, be profitable. Hey, and here's a quick bonus tip. All right. You don't have to wait until the end of the year to start these resolutions. You could literally start them today. Yeah, there is no better time like the present. So start these resolutions right now, whether you are watching this on January 1st, New Year's Day, or it's June, and you somehow got on this video, whatever it is, start these resolutions right now. Get on it and make sure you also like, comment, and subscribe to our channel while you're at it. Yeah, and ring that bell to see these episodes first. This is The Journey. We'll see you next time.