Streamline Your Processes: Building Structure for Growth in the New Year

Happy 2025!! I’m so proud of us all for making it another year, and I can’t wait to see all of the amazing, wonderful things we’re going to accomplish this year. I believe that transformation can begin (and happen) at any time, but the New Year is a really great point to use as a sort of springboard, especially for your business.

The start of a new year also marks the start of a new fiscal year, which can empower you to start moving a little differently in your business and start planning for all of the growth you want to see. Today, we’re reviewing some powerful ways to build structures to empower you and your business to reach all of your goals and keep growing.

Oh, and if you’re not a business owner, this can still be super powerful. Just review the steps and tips and take what feels useful for you. 😉

So, grab your notebook, get cozy (especially if you’re somewhere that’s cold!), and get ready to dive in!

Step One: Review Your Last Year

It’s time for a review! Analyze your business’ performance in 2024. Start by reviewing all the solid facts. This is stuff like your key business metrics—think revenue, expenses, any relevant customer metrics, KPIs, etc. These will give you an idea of what’s really going on in your business and help you understand trends.

Then, you’re going to explore the more situational and emotional aspects of your business. Ask yourself some questions to develop a clear understanding of what you need to keep, optimize, add, and get rid of this year. Here are some that I really like:

Discovering the good…

What were some things you did well?

How were you successful?

What was your favorite thing(s) to work on?

Was there anything you experienced or did that felt like a good use of resources? What was this?

What’s bringing the most money in? What about the most joy?

Identifying what to improve…

What stuff didn't go so well?

What part(s) of your business were stressful or unenjoyable?

What did you dread working on?

Did you ever feel like you wasted time or money? What was the situation?

What’s bringing in the least money? What about the least joy?

General reflections…

What should I have done that I can do this year?

How did I feel in and about the business?

Is there anything I want to change? What about things that need to change?

How do I want things to shift this year?

What do I want to improve this year?

Do I need to outsource? What should I outsource?

How can I add more ease and flow into my life?

As you’re working through these, don’t forget to be super honest with yourself. The best way to get clarity for how to move forward is to reflect truthfully on the past.

Step Two: Use your discoveries to brainstorm and set SMART goals

Once you’ve reviewed last year, you’ve done a good portion of the work for shifting . Now it’s time to take those answers and see how they can transform into actionable goals and ideas for transformation. I highly recommend brain-dumping all of your ideas onto a sheet of paper so you can see what things might kind of go together (like maybe you found doing your own bookkeeping stressful, and you want to try to outsource more things that don’t bring you joy) and have an easier way to prioritize goals.

Now it’s time to work on setting some SMART goals. These are goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. This framework helps you break down goals into more actionable tasks that you feel empowered to complete. Make sure to keep your goals aligned with your vision for your business to support that long-term growth.

Step Three: Set some priorities

It’s great to have many goals and massive aspirations for your business (and your life)! It can get tricky and overwhelming if you don’t prioritize some though, so take a few moments to reflect once more on what you think are most important to you. If you could only meet five of your goals this year, which ones would you be most excited about?

Getting extra clarity about what’s most important to you can help you make sure you always have a North Star of sorts. This helps you stay focused so you don’t lose sight of what you’re working towards.

Step Four: Create action steps

Okay, let’s recap: So far, we’ve reflected on the last year, set SMART goals, and created a prioritized list of goals.

Now, we’re going to set some action steps to get us moving towards our goals. The goal with these is to start taking action now so we don’t lose momentum. For some added ease, let’s give ourselves a window of around two weeks to start taking action.

Let’s see how this can work. We’re going to use the example from earlier:

You’ve decided that this year, you want to outsource more things that don’t bring you joy. You also decided that you want to organize and streamline your finances with better record keeping, but you know you don’t like bookkeeping.

One great action step for this set of goals/aspirations is to start looking for a bookkeeper. A second action step or benchmark for your goal is to hire a bookkeeper by the end of the month.

This gives you a significant amount of progress on your goals. Now that you have a bookkeeper, your finances should be more organized with better systems in place and you’ve outsourced a task that wasn’t bringing you joy, leaving more time for the things that do!

You can follow this sort of logic with any of your goals and build out as many action steps as you want. Just remember to keep it realistic and try not to overwhelm yourself with too much, too fast.

Step Five: Remember to maintain a balance

And there you have it! You can follow these steps as often as you need for further reflection and goal setting. I want to take a moment to remind you to make sure you keep a balance as you go through this process and even the year as a whole. One of my favorite parts about life is the giant & sign that it is. Multiple things can be true, so you can be a rapid fire of growth and a slow burn of ease and flow.

Carry that energy with you this year and remember to be kind to yourself. Set some boundaries and work to create a schedule that’s sustainable.

I hope you all have a wonderful new year and I can’t wait to see how we all grow this year!