Another New Year is upon us with the slate wiped clean and new opportunities awaiting each of us. For some people the previous year might have been your best year. The many new small business owners who just started in 2014 are reliving the new changes in their daily routine from their prior careers. the experienced business owners are doing their review of career goals and business plans of 2015 and wondering how different this 2015 will be.
During this new month, new year, and new innovative time, I recommend we all become students again and look at the New Year as a time for engaging in conversations, blogging, Facebook updating, texting, reading, researching and formulating your new 2015 direction. But first do some reflection.
Brilliant people learn from their mistakes and their achievements. Start the year out by listing your achievements, even those that were good or fair but still achievements. Achievements are the sales you made in 2015. How did you win over that client to choose you out of all of the other service providers who do what you do? Write down the direction and discussion you had with those clients that got them to say yes to you. That conversation or presentation you gave worked. Do it again and again with the next clients. How did you find that client in the first place? Go to that place often and do those activities again. It obviously worked to bring you a target rich market. Study your own habits that have placed you in the right place at the right time. Do it again and again.
Some of our days last year were not so productive. Reflect on why they were not so productive. Did you waste good hours in the day with frivolous activities? Why? Did you stay awake at night worrying about something that tomorrow would fix? Sometimes it pays off in hours of sleep lost if one simply stays awake and writes down the concerns on one’s mind and then writes out a solution to those problems. The next morning you already have a direction to fix the problems and during the night you have reassured yourself there is a workable plan. Learning from our mistakes is self-discipline. The self-discipline to never do that mistake again is what we are striving for. Mistakes can be as simple as wasting time, burning bridges, speaking without respect for the other person’s digni, and talking more than listening. Self-discipline is as simple as doing tasks that need to be done.
It’s time to develop your 2015 marketing plan, business plan, and set your budget. Do it now. Implement the budget and the marketing plan. Have the initiative to stick to your plan everyday. When daily conflicts get in the way of your daily plan, do the immediate need and then go back to the marketing plan implementation for today. Be aware of your attitude towards your career. If you love what you do, others see it demonstrated through your actions an not only your words.
You are the captain of your voyage and this is your life, your one time to be you and experience every good thing. Try to make everyday a day that will allow you to look at the end of 2015 with your list of successes being more numerous than the years before.