Review Your Q3 to Rock Your Year End Goals

It's official! We have twelve weeks left to rock 2017. Where has the time gone?! It seems like just yesterday I was sipping champagne on New Year‘s Eve, going over my goals for the first quarter and for 2017 overall.

You might be thinking about your year end goals (which is awesome!) but have you reviewed your third quarter goals yet?

If not, this is the perfect time!

Too often, entrepreneurs focus on looking ahead to what's coming next and forget to look at what they've already accomplished. The reviewing process is crucial to the success of your business because you can learn from your past results and figure out what‘s working and what isn't. Hindsight is 20/20 after all, but only if you actually look back!

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Pour yourself a cup of tea (or some champagne, why not?) and grab a notebook to take a good hard look at the last three months of your business.

Here are some tips for your third quarter review:

Schedule it
This review might seem like a huge task, but all you need to do is block out a half hour or so in your calendar.Go ahead and do that now. Pencil that baby in.

Write it down
The valuable stuff from Q3 will be a lot more obvious (and stick in your mind better) if you actually write it down in a notebook, planner, or on the computer. Also, if you did a review of Q2, get that out too so you can see your progress! TIP: If you didn't you can use this formula going forward.

Record your metrics
Income. Traffic. List growth. Followers and engagement. Expenses. Your time! Create a spreadsheet to keep track of these from month to month or quarter to quarter. That way, you can really take a look at progress and start noticing patterns.

Once you've got the numbers in front of you, look them over and make some notes. Do these numbers reflect your marketing efforts? Are all those expenses necessary? Are they drastically different from last quarter's numbers? Leave a column in your spreadsheet to make notes and observations.

Ask yourself the following questions and write down the answers:

• What worked?
• What didn't?
• What was a success in the last twelve weeks?
• What drove you crazy?
• Did you meet your quarter three goals?
• If you didn't meet some of your goals, which ones? What got in your way?
• What did you learn?
• How could quarter three have gone better?

That's it! See, not so bad after all, eh?

Assessing our pasts is incredibly important to moving forward and making progress in our businesses. Entrepreneurs are usually great at setting goals, just remember to make this stepa priority as well!

Hang onto this review for next week, when we set goals for Q4 and finish 2017 strong!