Look back to look ahead

It may seem contradictory, but at this time of year it is always salient to reflect on the past year to be able to better plan the year ahead.

This is the time of the year when words like cashflow start confronting us, both as CEOs and consumers!

I read somewhere last week that Australians spend just less than $1 billion on Christmas – for some businesses this is the key to the year’s success. For others it is a huge distraction to the main game!

But I think we would all agree that it is a great time of year to take stock, and not just in the physical sense, but rather to reflect back over the past year and look forward to 2008.

So whatever role Christmas plays in your business, there is a great opportunity at this time to reconsider all aspects of your business.

What were the great decisions you made in 2007?

What were the worst decisions you made in 2007?

What are the major challenges for the business heading into the New Year?

What are you planning to do in the first quarter of the year?

If you could change anything in your business right now what would that be?

What I love about the above, and the many other questions we can consider over the next month, is that they can apply equally to our personal and to our business lives. As the saying goes: “The quality of your life is related to the quality of your questions.”

Regardless of how the Christmas break affects your business, you can use this time to be very productive – to step aside from the daily routine and consider the bigger issues.

Where are you going and where will you be this time next year if things keep going the same way!

As I read this week; if nothing changes, nothing changes!

So often this time of year can take us over, but another way to handle this busy time is for us to take control and to treat it as a period for both personal and business renewal.

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