For many, the new year is a fresh start – an opportunity to make positive changes in one’s life.
Often, coming up with a list of New Year’s resolutions is easy, but sticking to those goals can be challenging. This is true in personal pursuits as well as in business.
Sagehill Community Futures works with rural entrepreneurs and small business owners in Saskatchewan. Office Coordinator Jenny Glessman said having goals is important, and those goals must be clear, achievable and specific.
“This is one we hear all the time: ‘I want to grow my business.’ it’s vague,” Glessman said.
“Grow my business to you might mean one thing and to somebody else, it means something else. If you said ‘I want to grow my business by 20 per cent this year,’ you’ve got something now that you can measure.”
Glessman stressed the importance of keeping track of your goals and setting deadlines.
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“Lots of people set their goals and they set them on a shelf and forget about them. They’re there so that you can track them and see if you’re getting where you need to go.”
Marvin Ryder, DeGroote School of Business marketing and entrepreneurship associate professor, said he wishes more people would make New Year’s resolutions around their personal finances. His top recommendations are reducing debt and saving as much money as possible.
“The government allows you to put $7,000 into your tax-free savings account (TFSA) and it can grow within that account to whatever number it wants and it’s all tax free,” he said. “Now again, $7,000 might not seem like much, but if you do that for ten years there’s $70,000 in principal plus whatever you gained from what you invested in.”
He also encourages people to be mindful of their spending patterns.
“Today with your smartphone, we tend to do electronic purchases,” he said. “That allows us to do a lot more spending without thinking.”
Similar to Glessman, Ryder said New Year’s resolutions fail when the goals are not specific. He recommends having clear financial goals and tracking them.
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