Whew! What a year.
Now that all of the negative political ads are off every news and entertainment site I visit online, and off my TV and radio, I can concentrate again!
Of course, I’ll be concentrating on hoping they finally get something done. Perhaps I expect too much?
I’ll also be concentrating on work.
Every year from right before Christmas to after the last bowl game on New Year’s day, I have just about every minute of every day scheduled for something – shopping, holiday parties, baking, friends’ houses, relatives’ houses, kids coming home, people at our house, football games to watch. I love it all!
Then, come January 2 (or maybe I’ll wait until January 5) I’ll settle back in at work. And I’ll wonder how the holidays whizzed by so quickly and what challenges we’ll be facing and working to overcome in the 360 days left in 2015.
I wouldn’t miss any minute of the holidays for anything. But it seems more and more, the “work thing” is constantly there, bubbling up. At times it relates to something that didn’t work the way I wanted it to last year. What should we have done differently? Did we see it as a problem soon enough? How do we avoid it in the future?
At other times it will be an idea or a notion or a problem that I know we will need to tackle soon for 2015 to be a success. What did we do that worked? What opportunities do we have that we’re not seeing clearly? How can we shake loose the residue of 2014 and look clearly at 2015?
I guess that’s part of what makes this time of year so hectic. While we just shut the door on last year, we already need to be looking six months – or more – into 2015, jumping on opportunities, fixing problems. It has to be a constant focus if we’re going to grow and succeed.
Maybe that’s the difference between most of us and those whom we elect? We know we have to fix things and fix them now. We know that an unhappy customer is not just one person whose business we might lose (bad enough), but that having one irritated customer could be the first sign that we’re not doing the right thing.
We know we can’t stand still or take for granted any success we’ve had in the market we serve. In business, we can’t afford complacency or laurel-resting or not thinking ahead – and thinking ahead so far it makes our heads hurt.
Taking action now keeps customers happy and keeps fresh ideas and opportunities on the horizon.
Kicking the can down the road fixes nothing.
Apparently I am not yet over the political ads.
