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Edition 406 – New Leaf

Written by Dean Robinson.

Happy New Year! My best wishes to you and your families for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2024.

For most of us, we’ve spent the last two weeks switching off, working on our tans and spending time with family and friends.

For small and family business owners, they’ve done pretty much the same thing, but generally with a twist. You see, the downtime is the only real time of year when they can completely clear their heads and allow their deeper thoughts to rise to the surface. The chaos of the day-to-day allows their brains to relax, and think creatively about the life ahead in 2024.

If your intention is to turn over a new leaf in 2024, here’s some questions to consider, this week, so that you can get your mindset right for the year ahead.

  1. What do I want to start doing, in business, and why do I want to start doing it?
  2. What do I need to start doing in business, and why do I need to start doing it (remember, “want” and “need” are two different concepts).
  3. What do I need to do in our business in order to get started on the journey of what I want to do?
  4. What do I need to do in our business in order to get started on the journey of what I need to do?
  5. What time am I carving out in my day, and week, now, so that I can achieve what I want to do, and what I need to do, in our business?
  6. Who is going to hold me accountable, internally and externally, in terms of the changes that I want and need to make in our business?

These aren’t New Year’s resolutions, for I’ve always had a problem with them. I’ve come across very few people in my life that have had an epiphany at five minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, then stuck with it for the remainder of the following year.

If you’re serious about wanting to change the result you’re generating in business, and in life, then, as the character played by Tom Wilkinson says in the opening few minutes of “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, “this is the day!”

To prove a point, and create some external accountability, here’s some of my own wants and needs for 2024.

  1. To stop doing work that no longer interests me.
  2. To further develop my intellectual property around “Building the Purposeful Family Business” and introduce it to each of my clients.
  3. To publish two editions of “Contemplation”, my mini book that was first introduced in the first quarter of 2023.
  4. To take the entire month of December 2024 off, so that Trish and I can take a pre-Christmas Caribbean cruise.
  5. To pay people to attend to the chores around our home that I no longer want to do. Living on acreage is pure bliss. The workload sure isn’t!
  6. To exercise a little more, now that I’ve worked off 16kg in the past 16 months. Walking is my activity of choice.

So, what are you looking to change this year, and how are you going to instill those changes into your life, daily?

This Week’s Tip

You don’t have to change, of course. However, if that’s your journey of choice, remember the old saying
“if you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.