Why New Year's Resolutions Fail Your Business (And What Works Instead)

Welcome to the Creative Mind Smart Money Podcast where we turn financial confusion into creative confidence. I'm Samantha Ek, the keeper and fractional CFO for creative entrepreneurs. Each week I'm sharing my financial expertise and actionable strategies to help you build a thriving creative business. Plus, you'll hear from industry experts who bring fresh perspectives on growing your business beyond the numbers. Because building a successful creative business starts with strong financial foundations. Your next chapter starts now. The first thing that people do in the new year is sprint into something new. They feel like they need to reinvent themselves and just become someone completely different because it's a new year, because you made some sort of resolutions and you just want to make sure that you are creating this new version of you. But your business doesn't need a brand new version of you. It just needs you to show up with the same steadiness that you'd bring to any sort of relationship that you care about. So today we're going to talk about what it looks like to treat your business like a relationship instead of some sort of business makeover that just happens at the beginning of every January. Because your business should be getting the best version of you all year round, not just in January when you have new resolutions and new things that you want to do. So there's a little bit of a mindset topic mixed in with the finance stuff, but I'm so excited to dive into this topic today with you. So let's get started. So I want to talk a little bit first about why resolutions generally tend to fail. So a lot of the times we have really good intentions at the end of the year or the beginning of the year whenever we set these resolutions, everybody sets, you know, 10 to 20 resolutions or goals and they're like, I'm going to get into it. And I can't remember the exact wording for it, but there's this stigma where we start in January and by February, everything is just back to normal. So like for example, if you take a gym, a bunch of people are going to the gym and starting with a new membership. And then by February, their membership is canceled and they're not going to the gym anymore because it was a near resolution. It was something shiny and new and it faded. So that's really the biggest drawback of a resolution is because it's something shiny. It's something new. It's something we want to test. So we start off with big eyes and bright ideas and big hopes and then we get to the point where it fades because it's just not as exciting as it was when we first started. So now it just doesn't matter as much. We're not really thinking about what we want to bring to the table anymore because now all those resolutions that we had kind of seem like why was I thinking of doing that? Or we do stuff and then we only have finish it. So there's a lot of reasons that we want to think about how we can do that consistently throughout the year, initiate and bring things to light and do things throughout the year and not just say, okay, you know what, I'm going to make a resolution at the end of the new year. I'm going to actually fix my systems because it shouldn't just be at the beginning of the year, right? It should be a all year round thing. If your system is broken, June, fix it and June, don't wait till January to go ahead and try and fix it. You need to treat your business like a relationship, not a project. Don't think of everything that you're doing as some sort of project and that's why in the new year again, we have that kind of fading that kind of, okay, well, now it's the new year. Whatever resolution I had, it doesn't really matter. So we're going to start with a little bit of an analogy. And we're going to call it attention, communication and consistency. So the attention is reviewing your numbers and checking in on your financial health. This is something you should be doing all the time because your business deserves that attention. It's not that attention just at the beginning of the year. It's not that attention just for tax time. This is something that you need to be doing year round. Reviewing your P&L is how you make sure that you're paying attention to your business and making sure that you're giving it the proper attention that it needs. Next, we have communication looking at your financial statements in the same way that you listen to a partner or a spouse or someone who's important to you. Communication is so vital for what you do in your business that it's something that's very important. And those monthly financial check-ins that I always talk about are a part of that communication. Consistency is showing up regularly, not just when it feels urgent or exciting like at those times we have a new year of resolution. So forecasting and planning and making sure that you're looking ahead is going to make you sure that you're staying committed to being together with your business. Kind of like a relationship, right? So your business has that relationship and you need to put your heart into it. So you need that attention, that communication and that consistency in order to bring it full circle and really have the business that you want to see. So in that case, what does a financially healthy relationship actually look like? How should we be looking at things in order to make sure that our relationship is actually financially healthy and that it is consistently and not just at the new year? So we really want to know how much money is coming in and going out. We don't want to be guessing. That's something that is very healthy and very good for you if you're making sure you do that. When we make sure that we don't go start books for months, again, this isn't just some sort of a new user's solution where you're saying, okay, I'm going to do my books every month and you only do that. You only make that promise once a year and then it never actually gets fulfilled. This is something that you should do very consistently. You don't wait until tax season to see what happened because again, if you're only looking at your books at that one point in time, you're not understanding the bigger and greater picture of your business and you're not giving it the consistency that it needs so that you can see things. And then of course, you're building a rhythm, whether that's a weekly money date, a monthly review and some sort of quarterly check-in because those are all very important. When we think of this in certain ways and we think of the consistency, a monthly review tells you what happened. So you're looking at everything on a monthly basis and you're looking at what happened over the past month. A quarterly review is what's changing. So what has changed over the past quarter, over the past few months and how does this affect me in my business? And then an annual strategy is what's next. So we've reviewed what happened. We've looked at what's changing. Now we're going to take all of that, combine it and see what is next. So what do we have next? What is going to be the next thing on our agenda? Now that we've talked about consistency and what we have going on with our relationship and the resolutions that we set, we want to talk about what makes a financially strong relationship with our business because again, our business is a relationship and we want to treat it as such. So we're trying to think of ways that we can deepen that relationship, ways that we can bring that relationship into a better frame. So one of them is clarity, which is honest communication. So again, this sounds like we're dating our business, but realistically, our business is kind of like its own entity, right? So we need to treat it as such. So understanding our revenue or expenses, our profit and our own pay, that is clarity because you're looking at those numbers and seeing what they aren't understanding them. Knowing what your numbers actually mean and not avoiding them. So that again, that is clarity and honest communication. That's something that a lot of people do and in general relationships is they avoid conversations, they avoid looking at things because they're scared of it. So taking that time to actually look at that is going to be very, very important. Consistency, which is showing up regularly. So doing this monthly reconciliation, reviewing your reports, updating your forecast and touching your financials more than once a year. That's going to create that consistency and that showing up regularly. And we want context, which is listening deeply to what's going on in your business. So the numbers aren't isolated. You guys know this. I've always told you that they tell you a story. So looking at that greater story and analyzing it and asking yourself what's changed, why has it changed, and how do I adapt to these certain situations? And then the intention, which is the shared direction because your forecast and the goals that you've created aren't random. They are commitments that you have made. So you want to make sure that you and your business are walking in the same direction. And if you're not, you need to kind of change it because of course this is how your business learns to trust you. And I know that sounds weird to say that the business is trusting you. But when you show up consistently and you have that consistency, your business is going to respond, right? It's the same thing as going to like a networking event and going out and showing up consistently. If you're consistently going out and networking, you're going to see results from that. This is that same kind of thing. And you're consistently building that financial relationship with your business. You're going to see those results. What happens when you stop treating your business like a resolution? There is a very clear transformation. You start to make a lot calmer decisions because you already know what's going on. You have that relationship. You're keyed into what's going on with your business. You don't panic when you have those super slow months because you understand the patterns that are happening with your business. Your pricing becomes more confident because you understand what your profit margins are and things like that And then you stop overcommitting because you understand your capacity and your cash flow I know we talked about over commitment and saying yes to everything last month But that's exactly why you have to continue to build that relationship You build a business that feels supportive instead of demanding and then of course, you know You're gonna have those healthy margins. You're gonna have predictable clip pay You're gonna have a clear growth plan and it's just gonna be much more sustainable So you're gonna have that steady stable growth instead of having the one-time spikes that we might see Normally so it's very very important that we kind of bring everything together and have that relationship and you know A bookkeeper can really help with that especially if you're someone who can't necessarily have the time to look at things on a monthly basis So you can have someone come in and help you to make sure that you are having the time to commit to that on a monthly basis. So now we have to ask ourselves that we are not creating some sort of resolution with our business We're creating a relationship. How do we recommit to our business in 2026? So first of all we need to make sure that again, we are having that relationship style commitment So maybe selling yourself. I'll check in with my business weekly and not just general business like your finances and everything like that setting up those CEO days, which is a very Administrative thing to do and that's exactly when you should be looking at your finances is when we have those CEO days I'll notice when something feels off instead of ignoring it So you're actually gonna put in the time to notice when something feels a little bit wrong So that you can actually make the changes immediately You're gonna stop rushing into decisions and making them out of fear or out of scarcity Because you're gonna know what's actually happening and what's actually going on You're gonna be aware of everything that's happening because you've committed to this relationship and you're checking weekly and you know exactly what's going on in your business You're gonna honor the financial goals that you've set together So I want to encourage you to make a short commitment statement to your business that is going to be not a resolution But a commitment that you're going to make this year to your business that is going to change the way you think about your business this year Okay, again your business doesn't need a brand new shiny version of you. It needs a consistent version of you You don't have to overhaul everything in your business You just have to keep showing up for the relationship that you've already built with your business and we get more consistent Give it the attention that it needs and give it the commitment that it needs. Okay If you found this episode helpful, please like subscribe and share it on social media and If you want to hear any other topics make sure to fill out the form in the description box below So that we can go ahead and talk about some of the things that you want to hear about I hope you guys had a great Christmas happy new year as always have the best week ever and we'll see you next week