Welcome to 2010!
January 6, 2010
I don’t know about you, but it seems as if the last decade has really flown by. We celebrated New Year’s Eve in 2000 at a James Taylor concert in Chapel Hill. My kids were 13 and 9, and things were hectic with our then five-year-old business.
Flash forward ten years and my son has graduated college; my daughter is off to college herself, and the whole thing has been a complete blur.
Things like this tend to be more visible on cyclical anniversaries like the end of a year, decade, or even millennium, but they also happen on the smaller, almost invisible cycles in our lives as well.
And even though I’m not a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions, here are a few things you might want to consider as you return to work this week:
* You Can Make Resolutions Any Time – Why wait until the end/beginning of the calendar year to make a resolution? If you decide to do something (diet/exercise/take a class/learn a language, etc.) you don’t have to wait for a new year or even a new day to start. You can do it today; right now if possible.
* If You Fail to Plan…. – There’s an old expression that if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. Sure, it’s a bit cliche, but it’s also valid and important. During the month of December 2007, we spent two solid days planning our strategy for 2008. We identified three specific areas we were going to focus on, and this figured into every decision we made. We didn’t do this the following year and as a result we strayed a bit from what would have brought our business the greatest return on investment.
* Make Decisions and Follow Through – Too many people procrastinate, both on reaching decisions and then on implementing them. They get stuck in “analysis paralysis” and when they finally do decide on a course of action, they take so long to do anything about it they might as well not have decided at all. Sometimes any action is a better course than no action at all.
As you start the new year, you have 525,600 minutes at your disposal; what are you going to do with them?
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