Have you been satisfied with the progress your business has made this past year?  Have you left too many things “undone”?    Are you constantly trying to put two days’ worth of work into one day and end up getting very little accomplished, and mostly being frustrated?

Now is the time to sit down and think about what is is that you really want?  What is the meaning of success to you?  “Success” is an individual thing, and each person has their own definition of success.  Are you trying to get every customer in town?   Do you try each day to do more alterations than the day before, or make more craft items in one day than you’ve ever done in the past?  Are you mentally, and physically, pushing yourself over limits that you’ve set for yourself in order to set more unachievable limits?

Perhaps we should all come back to earth and set some new and realistic goals for the new year.  We’ve all heard the statement “success is a journey and not a destination”, and the more I think about that statment the more true it becomes.  If success was the “destination” we’d never make it, however since it is the “journey”, we can set our goals, change the goals somewhat if necessary, and continue to “work our plan” and stay on course to build a solid business.

I’m in no way suggesting that we slack off, get lazy and let “whatever will be, will be” for the new year!  I’m simply saying that we really don’t need to do an overkill in the goal setting that our personal and family relationships suffer, our health suffers and in the end as we look back we have to admit that we ourselves have put so much on our plate that it’s destined for failure.

We can’t change the external forces in our lives such as the economy and personal situations that are going on right now.  However, we CAN change what is inside our head, our hearts and our souls.  We can all look deep inside ourselves and ask the question “what do I really want to accomplish in the upcoming year?”  Write down a listing of what you want to do and accomplish, then start another list breaking down those “want to do’s” with individual goals or steps to take to get you there.  You’ll see that it doesn’t have to be done overnight or within a week — slowly and surely does win the race!  One goal or step at a time will help you reach the first “want to do” on the list, then do the same thing for the next “want to do”, and so on.  Break down the major goal into smaller weekly goals, then into smaller daily goals, and before you know it you will have reached the major goal you were striving for.

Get out the “to do” and “want to accomplish” lists today so by the time New Year’s day rolls around you’ll be ready to go and can head into the new year with anticipation and an attitiude of “I can do it”, rather than stumbling into the new year mumbling “I hope things are better this year than they were last year!”