Five West Michigan Professionals & Entrepreneurs Share Their 2018 Resolutions
For many, New Year’s Resolutions are strictly personal goals: exercise, eat healthily, travel more… finally sign up for that photography class. While those are great goals to prioritize for the year, a new practice worth integrating is to make resolutions for your professional life, as well.
There is always room for improvement in every organization, in every leader, entrepreneur or employee. The New Year is a great time to evaluate, set goals, and create a concrete resolution. If you actively make efforts to achieve it throughout the year, you might be surprised how it can impact your success!
The Grand Rapids Chamber asked five West Michigan entrepreneurs and professionals to share both their career-related and personal resolutions for the year.
JOSHUA TYRON
OWNER & LEAD CREATIVE, SIDECAR STUDIOS
Professional Resolution: To move faster and do more with less. New tech is fun, but great work comes from the heart. The best camera you own is the one you have with you.
Personal Resolution: 2018 will be a year of purging. I am focused on dropping any personal items that do not bring me joy. Seriously, anyone need some tent stakes or one of the three corkscrews I have in my kitchen?
TRACY FAHSELT
DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER, AHC+HOSPITALITY
Professional Resolution: My theme for 2018 is to streamline. The number of accounts we manage online continues to grow at a rapid pace. I am incorporating new software to make managing them smarter, not harder. Efficiency is my friend.
Personal Resolution: I want to travel more this year. Whether locally or globally, I enjoy visiting places I’ve never been and doing something I’ve never done before. What should it be this year? I can’t wait to see!
BRANDON VOORHEES
CO-OWNER, GRAY SKIES DISTILLERY
Professional Resolution: Improve Time Management. One of the many challenges of owning a small start-up business is deciding the most efficient and valuable way to spend time. Every day there is a seemingly never-ending ‘to-do’ list, and if you are not careful, it is easy to get bogged down with the “low hanging fruit” tasks instead of diving into the more value-adding (yet more time-consuming) projects. I look forward to improving time management efficiency in 2018.
Personal Resolution: I know this is boring and cliché, but I must be honest. My big resolution this year is to improve physical health by exercising more and updating my diet. When life gets fast, it is easy to fall into a rut where both mentioned items can easily be neglected – which is exactly where I found myself the past couple years. I’m more excited than ever to get back on track in these areas. I have started a fitness challenge at a local training facility and have adopted a meal planning strategy to help achieve my goals. Cheers to becoming healthier in 2018!
ELYSE WILD
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, WOMEN’S LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
Professional Resolution: I usually don’t make resolutions, but this year I set goals for what I want to learn. For my career, I want to learn basic code and start learning statistics. As a writer, interpreting data is essential, and I want to be able to “find the story in the numbers,” as they say.
Personal Resolution: I want to learn how to play the violin and how to knit. It is said that learning a musical instrument at any age improves your cognitive function, and I love the sound of the violin. As for knitting, my mom can make anything with a pair of knitting needles, and my great uncle was a well-known fiber artist; I admire their work and like the idea of training my hands to do something other than scroll through my news feed.
JAVIER OLVERA
PRESIDENT & CO-OWNER, SUPERMERCADO MEXICO
Professional Resolution: We plan to focus on efficiency this year. If we’re more efficient, we’ll grow even faster – so we’ll be focusing on efficiency in terms of our employees and our standards.
Personal Resolution: I’d like to meet more new people and make new connections. I would also like to be healthier through exercise and playing basketball. Of course, I’d also like to spend more time with family! That’s important as well.