Get Your New Year's Resolutions Here

It's December. Time for our annual resolutions. Time to craft the perfect to-do list of items that will help set the course for every step you take.

Setting an organized game plan of the strategies you want to accomplish – the markers you need to hit in 2017 – should be a work in progress. Your New Year's resolutions are just the starting point.

Most everyone aspires to learn something new, delegate more, give back to their community, achieve better work/life balance, help their customers attain more success, and make more money. Those are real and tangible goals – initiatives you should work on each and every day.

The crux of every resolution, however, is to never lose sight of your mission statement. That means approaching your New Year's resolutions by remembering why you are in business in the first place.

Deborah Shane, small business thought leader and author of "Career Transition — Make the Shift," says that one of the keys to successfully mastering your New Year's resolutions is to take on the initiatives that help you and your customers achieve success.

And that starts with those first of the year resolutions. Be selective and strategic. Make sure that every choice you make is a step toward bringing you closer to your goals. Set goals that every-body can reach together. Stronger and more succinct marketing plans. Better communications initiatives with your customers. A full commitment to improving the business acumen of your team and their reach with your customers.

Just don't over think things and complicate your progress.

Planning is a fundamental and essential part to you and your customers' growth and success. It is the stuff of great New Year's resolutions.

Want some more advice? Follow the "10% Rule." Strive to change or improve by 10 percent. Being realistic is well served when it comes to setting bars that are just too high to hit.

There's your first resolution right there.

Happy New Year!