An important “Do Not Skip” Step for Preparing for 2010

The year is winding down and if you are in business you no doubt have had an interesting year with many ups and likely quite a few downs. Life as a small business owner can truly resemble a ride on a tilt-a-whirl at times. And, depending upon how smooth your ride has been over the past year you may be eagerly looking forward to 2010 or dreading the prospect of another year not much different than this past one.

A common problem with being a small business owner is that we don’t usually have a team of folks who provide us with ongoing feedback and recognition for how well we are doing. We do, however, have a very noisy team of one (ourselves) often armed and ready with a long list of what we had intended to do but did not.  That noisy team of one can really sap your confidence.

The only difference between the idea that you can achieve your goals, and a full-blown belief (self-confidence) that you can achieve all you desire in 2010, is positive evidence.

If you are not feeling particularly cheery about what you have accomplished over the past year you can easily change that. All you have to do is take some time now, during this lull before the New Year begins, and collect up some of that juicy, morale-boosting, positive evidence.

Here are some questions you might ask as you collect up the evidence of success upon which you will build in 2010:

• What are you most proud of?
• What goals did you accomplish?
• What important relationships did you cultivate?
• What are you grateful for?
• What new products or marketing materials did you develop?
• What did you learn?
• What recognition or awards did you receive?
• What investments did you make in yourself or your company?
• What great things happened that you did not predict?

If you find this process of finding gobs of positive evidence rather hard you are probably being too hard on yourself. Focusing exclusively on what you have not yet accomplished, or  where you fell short of your goals, is going to rob you  not only of the enthusiasm and motivation to greet the new year with gusto, but also of the opportunity to relish the journey you took to get where you are.

Take a little downtime now before the hectic days of January begin to gather up a nice collection of evidence and in the process honor and acknowledge yourself for a job well done.