That Time Between Christmas and New Year

My Dear Beloved Reader,

Diana and I hope you have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas, and Santa has been kind to you, and you are replete after lashings of food and perhaps the odd modest tipple. Now, I’m hoping that I’ve caught you at that reflective time that lies between Christmas and The New Year. You’re either still at home enjoying a break or perhaps you have returned to work, but it’s a little slow as so many other businesses /clients are still on holiday. However, this is a great time to be reflective and to become a planner. So, if I may, I would like to suggest the following:

1). Let’s look back at the last twelve months and see how things have progressed in your life. I would strongly recommend that you take a new page in your journal draw a line down the centre and on the left-hand side list all your accomplishments during the last 12 months. Now on the right-hand side of the line list everything that didn’t go so well. If the stuff on the left outweighs the stuff on the right, you’ve had a great year! If not, then we need to recognise the need for change, and perhaps we can start that now with a plan! Just remember that as Mark Twain remarked: “If you always do what you’ve always done then you’ll always have what you’ve always got”.

2). The rudiments of making a plan is to operate from document and not from thought. Sometimes, there’s so much going on in our brain that it’s difficult to focus on an action plan. It’s so much better to get your thoughts out of your brain and into your journal. Incidentally, it’s now proven that those that plan on paper do better than those that plan on a screen. Before you commit your plan to your journal, I believe that you need to start the process with the end in mind. In other words for you to move forward in your life, you need to have a clear idea of where you would like to be in say the next twelve months. Some of the areas for you to consider would be relationships, financial, health, personal development, attainment and I’m sure as you start this journey you will find other areas to consider. Here’s a word of warning. When I first started on this path many years ago, the biggest distraction was the moving wallpaper that sat in the corner of your living room, your television set. Nowadays, it’s the all-pervasive smartphone. I would encourage you to have a ruthless attitude towards your devices. Use them for communication and research. Avoid them for passing the time, and I would suggest that while you are planning the next twelve months of your life, you turn your telephone off! You can catch up on your messages later.

3). Hopefully, you will have been jotting your ideas, dreams and goals down in your journal as you have been reading this article. The next step is to bring some order to your random thoughts. You now need to decide upon the critical areas that you need to work on and start scoping them out in detail in your journal. For me to discuss with you in the short article, all the areas of your life would be impossible. Therefore, let us discuss matters financial.

4). It’s now time to create a visual action plan. I’ve always done this in a ninety-day cycle and have it on my wall above my workspace. First, create a three-month calendar. Just take three sheets of A4 paper and draw out a month on each of them say January, February and March. Now put in the essential elements — your local opportunity presentations, seminars, trainings etc. Now put all the necessary family stuff. Then all the stuff you have to do for the day job. The white stuff that’s left is the time you can put to use to build your fortune. There is no shame in working full time on your job and part-time on your fortune. Using the white stuff that’s left you would list the activity required to initially get the appointments that will lead to presentations and results.

5). It’s essential to be accountable to yourself, and you can use your journal to accomplish this. At the end of everyday list your activity, appointments made, presentations made, customers gathered, new partners introduced. At the end of the week add it all up. Then you can compare week two to week one, month two to month one, the second quarter to the first quarter. Do this for ninety days, and it will become a habit that will never let you down.

Finally, all of the above requires discipline, and it’s accurate to say that the pain of discipline weighs ounces, but the pain of regret weighs tons.

I hope that I have challenged you with this short article and if you need any further clarification, please do not hesitate to get in touch. It just remains for me to wish you and yours a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

Until my next post…………………………Toodleoo!