According to the Chinese proverb, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” This pretty straightforward concept definitely rings true now more than ever at the begining of a year.

In the Chinese Zodiac, 2012 is the year of the Dragon.
The Dragon is the mightiest of all signs symbolizing dominance and ambition.

A Dragon is a powerful leader that is driven, unafraid of challenges and willing to take risks. So much so that a Dragon’s passion and enthusiasm can leave a Dragon feeling exhausted.

If you are a business owner, you too can feel exhausted, especially at this time of the year – you have just finised reflecting on your 2011, thinking about all that goals you accomplished and all that you didn’t accomplish. You wonder what you should do to make your business better and more successful in the coming year.

To help you with this, below is a list of 5 key steps you can implement to ensure that 2012 is a boom year and not a bust.

1. Review Your Goals

The first and foremost thing to do is to sit down and go over whether you met your goals. If you have been in business for a short time, did you grow according to what you had planned? If you have been in business for a while, how has 2011 compared to previous years? Did you have more revenue, more customer issues, or more operational complications in running your business?

If you did not create a plan, then do so. You cannot arrive at a specific destination without a plan for getting there. Do not let another year pass you by without getting the things you want in your business.

A great way to do this is to create a checklist setting forth each goal that you want to achieve. Your checklist should include what you want to improve upon, new initiatives to implement, expected outcomes, and your budget for such checklist.

If you don’t have a defined budget, you won’t be able to accomplish each item specified on your checklist. The best way to prepare your budget for 2012 is to review your budget from 2011, which is the next step.

2. Review Your Budget

Taking the time to review your budget can make or break your company in the next year. If you found 2011 to be a difficult year, then ask yourself what your budget aspirations and constraints were.

For example, if you are a newer business, may be you had difficulty in growing to the level that you had anticipated. If you are an established business, you may have had difficulty with expanding your company, such as hiring employees, office space limitations or even new product lines.

Whatever the case, take the time now to create a detailed budget for 2012 to serve as your roadmap. This roadmap will help you to deal with any unexpected issues that may arise.

Once you have created your budget for the coming year, stop and look back at what worked and did not work with your marketing efforts.

3. Review Your Marketing Efforts

Marketing is a key component for any business. We all know that you really never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure that the first one counts.

For example, did your brand meet your customer’s expectations? Meaning, if you made a promise, did you deliver? If not, then ask yourself what you can improve upon to make sure that you do so in 2012. Can you automate your marketing?

With technology today, it is easier than ever before to get in front of your customers. From collecting email addresses to sending out discount coupons electronically, to integrating your marketing message with mobile devices, or to using social media to network. By incorporating technology into your marketing strategy, it will help your business to have long-term success.

4. Review Your Social Media

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, these are the three social media giants today. With millions and millions of users, social media continues to grow and is not going anywhere anytime soon.

So, how much social media presence did your business have in 2011? If the answer is not much, you need to look at how you can utilize social media in 2012.

For example, look at how you can use social media to promote your products or services, to post links to your newsletter, articles you have written or industry news, and to network with others to introduce your business. By using social media, you can quickly and effectively increase awareness about your business, increase traffic to your web site, and reinforce brand recognition, to name a few.

Besides social media, you should also review your web site to make sure it is up-to-date.

5. Review Your Web Site

Often times, web sites become stagnate. You get busy doing other things that you forget to review or even update your web site with current information.

So, take a close look at your web site and ask yourself some of these pertinent questions:

- Do all of the hyperlinks work?

- Is all the information contained on your “About” page still relevant?

- Have you optimized your web site with keywords to help Google find you?

If you answered “No” to any one of these questions, then it’s time to take action now and update your web site.

I believe that by  implementing these 5 key steps in your business, 2012 will be YOUR year of the Dragon!художник на икони

It’s yours!

“If you know you want it, have it.”
Gita Bellin

Do you ever find yourself apologizing for the things that you want out of life; as if you are in some way, being brash, greedy or overly ambitious?

Well it’s time to stop.

It is your life and you deserve to fill it with all the things that matter most to you!

So often, when people talk about their goals, it is with a conscious or subconscious desire for approval.

When this approval is not forthcoming, the natural reflex is to shrink or contract your desires.

So today, I want you to take a moment to think about what is really going on for you before you start discussing your goals.

The truth is, you don’t need anyone else’s approval to live your best life… so don’t waste energy looking for it!

Enjoy your day and the excitement of Thanksgiving Day

Are you refreshed and revitalized?

“Let there be more joy and laughter in your living”
Eileen Caddy

Let me begin by asking you a small but important question –

Did you have a good weekend?

Now a more specific question –

What did you get up to; did you spend your time doing things you love or was your time lost on chores, sleep and your sofa?

So why are the interest?

Well here’s the thing often we start the weekend with good intentions, but without careful planning and commitment, weekends turn into weeks, weeks blur into months and nothing ever really changes.

Looking back at this weekend just gone, is there anything you would change or do differently to ensure your life was more like the one you want to be living?

If you want true balance in your life, managing the way you spend your time off must become just as important, as the way you manage your time ‘on’ work.

So for next week why not focus on your time off.

Look at the hours that you won’t be spending at work and make a plan to use your time in the most refreshing, revitalizing and rewarding way possible.

Then ask yourself the question – Did you have a good weekend?

Are you a creature of habit?

One of the most important things you can do if you want to make this your best year ever, is to identify what new habits you need to develop.

Are you one of those people who focuses most of their energy on old habits they you really want to overcome or eliminate.

I suggest that identifying these nonconstructive habits is important, but focusing your energy this way often results in a surge of negative energy.

You think I won’t… I mustn’t…. I shouldn’t…

How about this you focus instead, on the new constructive habits you want to develop, you will be approaching your challenges from a more positive mindset

- I am… I do… I will… I have…

Ask yourself , “what do I want to do, be or have in my life from tomorrow?”.

Then create new habits that will support you in achieving these goals.

You will find that this positive approach makes it easier to achieve the changes you want to make in your life.

So why not give it a go?

Achieving More

“He who has begun his task has half done it.”
Horace

Today I want you to achieve more than you have ever achieved before…

How do you do that?

By trying to achieve less!

Instead of working on a hundred things at once, never truly completing anything, I want you to choose three tasks to complete today and for you to make completing these tasks your priority – don’t focus on anything else until these three things are done.

Then tomorrow lets pick another three things only

And the following day – yes you’ve guessed it another three

By limiting the number of things you are focusing on, you will be reducing the amount of pressure a giant to-do list constantly places you under and if you keep this up each day of the week, imagine how much you will have achieved by the end of a week!

Claim your destiny!

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it’s a matter of choice!”
Jeremy Kitson

Imagine what your life would be like if you were achieving 100% of your potential?

What would be different about your life and what would need to change?

If you don’t feel you are already living your true potential, don’t panic. Rather than try to change everything overnight, make a plan to move towards your destiny a few steps at a time.

1. Identify three things you would like to achieve / do differently this week that will take you closer to your potential?

2. Identify three things you would like to achieve / do differently this month that will take you closer to your potential?

3. Identify three things you would like to achieve / do differently over the next year that will take you closer to your potential?

Make the commitment to these goals and watch your destiny become your reality.

Why will this happen?

Well because you are worth it

Are You Just Mediocre

“Mediocrity is self-inflicted. Genius is self-bestowed.”
Walter Russell

Let me ask you this can you imagine what your life would be like if you only ever gave your best efforts to what you were doing?

Imagine the great heights you could achieve, the things you could accomplish and dreams you could make your reality.

Being the best you can be, doesn’t mean you have to be perfect [listen up procrastinators this is aimed at you]; it means giving 100% of your ‘available’ capacity to the task at hand.

It’s not about what you could have achieved yesterday or what you might be able to achieve tomorrow – it’s about what you are able to give, right here, right now.

Today, I challenge you to be the best you can be, in all that you do.

Your day still might not be perfect and you may still encounter ups and downs, but at the end of the week you will be able to relax, confident in the knowledge that it couldn’t have been any better than it was.

Then enjoy the feeling of having given your all and look at what you actually achieved.

The Highway of Passion

“When work, commitment, and pleasure all become one and you reach that
deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible.”

Let me ask you a very personal question – Is this you :

You have :

a 9 to 5 job getting a good pay,

you have a great family and

all’s well with your world [as you see it].

But deep inside, you know and feel like you’re going nowhere.

The job is not going up either.

You are really stagnating in your career both mentally and spiritually.

Something is missing.

Passion.

The one character that textbooks and instruction manuals and company procedures will never talk about.

Everybody is in such a hurry to get you to fit perfectly into the machine like a well oiled gear wheel, that they actually forgot you are a living, feeling human being.

Even you have forgotten this.

Ask yourself this.

What if I had a million bucks in the bank, what kind of work would I be doing?

Would I chuck this humdrum job and move on to something really exciting?

Like something that I have always wanted to do?

Then ask yourself – why am I not doing that right now?

Is it because of peer pressure or because I don’t want to move out of my comfort zone?

Don’t want to rock my boat?

You are half asleep in your boat already and in a few years, you could be put out to pasture! – permanently

If the boat rocks now, you could be jerked awake and come to your senses.

Your passionate senses.

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, millions of people lost their jobs.

Many of them took up new vocations and suddenly found that they were finally following their dream.

Many of them are now highly successful in their new found professions.

You don’t have to wait for dire straits to rock you out of your present mediocre life.

You can decide right now, that you want to live and work passionately and make your life worthwhile.

The Highway of Passion is an amazing ride.

And Prosperity is just one of the landmarks on this route!

Get ready for the ride of your life!

more to come – check back regularly

Look For Hidden Compromises

Another message of inspiration and encouragement, motivation and support for you

This message should only take you a minute or so to read, but if you put it into action it could change the way you live your life.

I want you to think about the vision you have for your future and look for hidden compromises.

Are there any areas of your life where you are settling for less than what you truly deserve?

Are there any past limits or outdated expectations that have crept into your vision?

Are there elements of your future where you have held yourself back from all that you truly desire?

While it is important to be willing to make conscious compromises in life, hidden compromises are those that you don’t realize you are making.

They undermine your vision and ultimately leave you feeling compromised.

It takes courage to live your best life.

Be brave and make sure that the vision you have is for the best possible life you can imagine!

Let it slide!

“Ideas by themselves cannot produce a change of being;
Your efforts must go in the right direction, and one must correspond with the other.”
P. D. Oupensky

Today a message of inspiration and encouragement, motivation and support.

This message should only take you a minute or so to read, but if you put it into action it could change the way you live your life.

Do you sometimes find yourself stressing about things, only to look back a few days later and wonder what all the fuss was about?

One of the great benefits of being clear on your values is being able to work out what things deserve your time and energy (both physical and emotional) and what things are simply not worth the bother.

Today, when you find yourself stressed, tense or anxious about something, ask yourself ‘does this really matter to me?’, ‘will I still care about this in one week / month / year?’

When you know the answer to these questions, you will easily be able to determine if the situation warrants your time and energy, or if the best course of action is to simply let it slide…