As we come to the end of the first month of 2012, my question is: how much have you grown in the past 31 days? Have you grown in personal development (learned something new; felt inspired by reading a new book)? Has your business moved forward?
If you are like me, you started out the New Year with brand new goals – yearly goals, monthly goals, weekly goals… And if you are like me, you probably had some unexpected “life” situations come up in the last 31 days that may have caused you to get a little sidetracked on some (or all) of those goals. (My unexpected situation in January was getting sick for 2 weeks.)
It’s at this point, when “life gets in the way”, that a lot of us get disillusioned with some of our ambitious goals and decide to just give up. I saw a great quote that puts it all into perspective:
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” Chinese Proverb
My motivation from this quote is: Don’t give up! As long as we keep moving forward and growing, we are going to be better next year than we are today. Maybe this first month your goals got off to shaky start, but next month you could double your planned results – who knows?
The important point is to keep moving, to keep growing, to keep working…which brings me a second great quote for the week:
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” Calvin Coolidge
We set goals at the beginning of each month; my advice is to measure our growth at the end of each month. Look back on the month and ask yourself: “What have I learned? How have I grown in the past month?”
I plan to keep track of my business and personal growth this year. At the end of each month, I’m going to write down the ways in which I’ve grown: new skills I’ve learned, new books I’ve read, new milestones in my business. Even if I have not met all the goals I set at the beginning of the month, I’ll have a list of my accomplishments that will motivate me to continue growing, no matter what the pace.
How about you? Do you have any tips for growing or moving forward?