With the holiday season fast approaching I took some time to watch my children prepare their Santa letters. Of course, every single item on that list was something they truly didn’t need, but felt they would just “die” if Santa didn’t bring it to them! We are fortunate to belong to a society of want rather than need. So many in the world are not nearly as fortunate as us and we truly should be grateful for the wonderful gifts we have been blessed with.

All that aside, let’s be realistic. We realize we are fortunate, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t really, really want something just as my children really, really want the latest and greatest new toys this year. This too is true about our businesses. I am sure you can make a list right now of 20 things that would be great for your business and really, truly make your life much easier. So what things are you going to put in place to get those 20 things this year? Yes they may be things you truly don’t need, but why not treat yourself? If you have truly taken the steps to set up a thriving business and to develop strategies to allow your business to continue to grow it’s time to reward yourself.

Take your wish list and pick at least one thing on that list. Now set yourself a goal. Make the goal a realistic goal, but something you truly need to work towards. Next I want you to make yourself a promise. When you reach that goal this year, I want you to reward yourself with that one item on the list. I am sure the incentive of the “prize” waiting at the end will be enough to truly get you working towards completing that goal and in doing this you will truly have created yourself a thriving business.

So I will go first … my goal is to develop my business to a point where I have a Project Manager fulltime and I am working only when I want to (in other words my business is self run)!! So now for the reward …. my reward will be …. to take my family on a cruise. This is a dream we have always had, but never gone any further.

What about you? What is your one big goal and what will your reward be if you reach that goal by this time next year?