We are here; 2021. A new slate to begin a fresh. Many of us have already written down our New Year resolutions or settled on our word of the year and are set to go forth and conquer the year. Last year, 2020 was the year of curve balls. The pandemic really shook many foundations – from business and finances to health and physical wealth being.

No doubt we have great expectations for 2021. Whether it’s starting a new business, getting a new job, growing your finances, or eating healthier. As a social entrepreneur, you may want to look at the following areas to increase your chances of success in your enterprise.

Prioritize

Make this your year of ruthless prioritization. Always do the most important thing first. Write down your to-do list and ask yourself, what is the most urgent task? Begin there. I know a school of thought that recommends starting with the most difficult task – eating the frog. Built as we know, that may not work all the time. The frog may come too ugly, or too tough to chew so you quit midway hence killing your motivation to tackle more assignments lined up for the day. Sometime  you may not get to the end of your to-do list, don’t be hard on yourself. It happens to the best of us.

One way to ensure you prioritize well is applying the Four D’s of Time management principle: Do, Delay, Delegate, and Delete.

Work on the business, not in the business

Whether your social enterprise is 30 days or 30 years old, it is important you learn the practice of working on your business and not in your business. Working on your business means that you take time off operational work to work on strategy. Working on strategy will require that you reflect, scan the horizon, and see your enterprise from a futuristic perspective.

Here are some tips of going about this;

  • Block a day every month for working on strategy
  • Periodically leave your workplace. It will amaze you how a change of scene can free your thoughts.
  • Find a helper in the journey. Building and running an enterprise can be a journey of frustration and exhaustion. Find a mentor or friend who you can connect regularly to hash things out.

Learn from your failures

Failure is normal in the process of building your enterprise. In fact, failure gives you the opportunity to innovate, because if everything goes exactly to plan, you are not trying out new things. Take time to reflect on mistakes in 2020 as the lessons you need to do better in 2021.

 Keep Learning

As your enterprise develops, so should you. Find opportunities to upgrade your knowledge base and refine your skill set. You will play multiple roles during the formative stages of enterprise; from accountant to marketer and janitor to messenger. Stepping up to some of these roles will require training – whether it be watching a tutorial on YouTube or enrolling for an online course, be intentional in your learning.

We hope these four tips will be helpful in your goal setting as you aspire to be a better version of yourself at the end of 2021.