I planned to write today’s post with tips and ideas on how to set yourself up for success in 2013.
I wanted to build on our last post where I asked you some specific questions to evaluate 2012 and let you know about my upcoming PRO Marketing Calendar Workshop. I was going to give you some key questions to really spark your thinking on designing your business in a way that is profit-driven AND excites you.
I changed my mind.
Instead, I got more curious about what actually gets in the way of doing the work to strategically plan how you want your business to look.
Why is it that so few entrepreneurs even take an hour to get clear about their vision, their profit plan and how they’re going to build their platform? Why do most just wing it – taking it week by week, and continually asking themselves, “What is it that I should be working on???”
I’m sure part of it is that planning sounds boring, hard and like the last possible thing you’d want to spend your time doing. I hear you tell me that you’re not sure where to start, or what to do, or what to consider.
Fair. But we both know that’s not really it.
You’re resourceful, strong, smart and creative – you have tools, resources and people all around you that can show you the path to a more empowered and profitable business.
I think you’re just comfortable in your own chaos.
You’re very familiar with this place of not knowing what’s coming next – you’ve been operating your business like that from the beginning. You’re used to taking it day-by-day, flying by the seat of your pants and operating reactively instead of with purpose.
You probably don’t love working this way, but it’s the well-traveled path.
It’s working for you on some level. For one, it requires less of you. You don’t have to step up and really claim it. You can hover below your potential and nobody but you needs to know that you’re giving way less than you’re actually capable of.
And secondly, if you don’t get the results you want, it’s easy to say, “Well, I didn’t really plan this out – so no big surprises.” You validate your results the way a University student who crams the night before justifies a B- (they could have done better if they had studied ahead of time….)
I get it.
People are generally resistant to change. We do things the same way again and again – even when we know they aren’t working for us.
No human being is immune. We all hover.
But it’s such a disempowering place from which to operate. It sells us short and wears us out.
And I want better for you. Which is why I’m writing this tough-love love letter.
Claiming greatness requires you to shift all the perspectives that severely limit your potential. Owning your results means you stop making excuses and believing the story you’ve told yourself (again and again) that you’re just not organized / smart/ strategic / experienced enough to actually LEAD your business like a PRO.
One of the fundamental principles I live by is that we are always in choice. Whether our results are great or sub-par, we have to take personal responsibility for them – not blaming the economy, your competition or any other external factors for what you haven’t yet achieved.
This is an incredibly empowering way to live – it means that you get to decide what you want more of and what you want less of, and actively create the life and business you want.
So, if you want to create a powerful and purposeful 2013, you also must make a choice.
That choice requires you to decide that operating from a place of chaos is no longer serving the vision you hold for your business and your life. That today you’ll decide that you absolutely CAN enter into the new year empowered, decisive and clear.
It will feel a little awkward at first – as any new change does – but if you continue to remind yourself what you’re creating, you’ll soon start to feel the confidence that comes by operating by design, not default.
We’ll talk more about this idea in 2013 (hey – I’m writing a book on the topic), but for now, the one wish I have for you is that you believe that a new way of operating is possible for you – as are new results.
“It’s never to late to be what you might have become.” ~ George Eliot
Photo Credit: 
Kevin Dooley via Compfight
