“If you fail to plan you plan to fail” – Benjamin Franklin
Q4. It’ll be here before you know it. What comes after that? The New Year!
New year = New plan (or same plan?)
You might be doing excellent in business right now. Maybe nothing in your market has changed. BUT if you’re like oh… 95% of the business world, the Global Supply Chain has been disrupted. Global cause = local problems. And if you cannot relate, stop reading. I’ll save you 8 minutes.
Most of us can relate right now. So that means you have had to adapt from your original PLAN.
Just to start some ideas, here are a few things you might consider that are different from 9 months ago that you haven’t even realized yet.
Do you have new products or services?
Is there something brand new you are offering the market that wasn’t there before?
Has it been more successful than your past products?
Maybe it would be good to put some time and effort into nurturing that.
Have you been spending more time or resources to get things that are not available instead of working with what can be accessed right now?
Have you downsized staff?
Maybe your team is smaller and it’s time to review goals?
Should you move, go virtual, lease a co-working space?
If you’ve been blessed to double in size, it’s a good time to check on the plan of action in that case too.
What would it look like next year if you keep growing?
Is the plan for 2021 still working today?
This is assuming you put a plan in motion for this year.
If you did, are you ahead, behind? Is it unrealistic altogether?
What could you adjust right now that would maximize the last 3 months of 2021?
Do you need to make a significant change before it’s too late?
I need to stop myself before I get too far.
This is a discovery exercise. All of these questions above are designed to make you stop and think. Even for 5 minutes about what is different today than it was last year.
I sat down and started reviewing my goal and task sheets from last year. Several have changed. A few aren’t even an option anymore. A couple are even scrapped and revised into new programs I am working on.
It was a reset. A literal blank page. I had the choice to say “Here is what I am committing focus on for the next 6 months.”
I have a 1 year, 5-year, and 10-year goal planner which I review every day when I make my task sheet. It helps me remember the long-term priorities that need to be accounted for so that today’s ‘Emergencies’ don’t distract from the 10-year goals.
If you say ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ every single day. Tomorrow becomes today and then yesterday.
As the proverb goes: “The best time to plant a walnut tree was 20 years ago. The second best time, is today.”
Am I making a mistake?
FOMO – Fear of Missing Out.
It manifests when your friends see a movie without you. A colleague is more successful. Someone else’s kid gets into the big school. You want the Pizza she got instead of your PB&J.
What is at the root of this? FEAR. Which I like to use along with FOMO False Expectations Appearing Real.
Sometimes you are worried, and you just need a friend to snap you out of it!
Perhaps you have your plan, it looks good, you’ve reviewed it. But something makes you feel afraid to move forward. If that’s the case, our team at VeraPax is skilled at walking through the process of achieving your goals and putting the right thing in the right place on your timeline.
If any of these checkboxes are part of your plan for the coming year call us today so we can get you moving in the right direction.
We are here to help! 602.995.7841
