Your ‘dash’ to success in 2013: Winning your own race
Full Contact Project Management
Right about now, everyone’s all concerned with New Year’s resolutions, what next year may hold for us, what to change, and what to repeat. A wish for this and a hope for that… Consider this instead: This is how your 2013 actually looks: Jan. 1, 2013 – Dec. 31, 2013.
The year 2013 has to be your year to succeed. Everyone, including your competitors, has been given Jan. 1 through Dec. 31. The difference is the “dash” between day 1 and day 365. That difference is you. It’s all you’ve got.
Coach Gary has coaches himself. Let me tell you about Coach Kenneth, who said to me, “Gary, what are you doing with your dash, and what have you done with the dash you were given for 2012?” His questions really made me think.
Regardless of where you stand, you can expect politics to be pretty much business as usual. But the theme of my messages over the past couple of years to “hang in there” still is going to be important going forward. As an industry, and as individual contractors, hanging in there may just be the name of the game. Things likely will not get remarkably better any time soon.
As you plan your dash, what are you going to do differently this year from last year?
If you’re reading this in early-January, doesn’t it seem impossible that you are now writing the date as 2013? Where did the time go? My guess is that it went by pretty quickly – in a dash!
Life and business, even family, are a race. That new little baby is now asking for your car keys or is leaving for college, or just going out on his or her own. “Time is at once the most valuable and the most perishable of all our possessions.”
- John RandolphThat new business has now been around the block a couple of times, can do more things, has more experience. How did all of that happen?
A famous old saying: If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you’ve always got! In other words, if 2012 wasn’t so hot (or could have been hotter), are you going to do the exact thing in the new year? Unless you are very content with things, then I hope that your answer is “No.”
I can tell you this with great certainty: The people at the MCAA have no intention of doing things the same as they did last year. They are in a growth mode, and you should position your business to work along with them. They know exactly where they are going in 2013. My suggestion is to run along with them, and let them do the hard work while you follow along in their draft.
Pope John XXIII put it this way, “Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”
How big would your dreams be for this coming year if you knew that you couldn’t fail? Many of your competitors will not dream at all. But you are all about the dash!
About the Author
Gary Micheloni is a working project manager, speaker, author, consultant and coach. He has severals years of industry experience, including a background as a licensed general engineering contractor. For further information and insight on the Full Contact Project Management approach, write Coach Gary at FullContactTeam@gmail.com.
