Looking forward, looking back

“Study the past if you would define the future.”
― Confucius

June is a fun time for my business: a time of reflection and planning.  I run my fiscal year the same as a calendar year, but June kicks off the planning process for the next year.  I start off the month by looking at progress markers so far in the year, compare year-to-date from the prior year, adjust the remaining goals of the year, and start to lay down my plans for the next year.  This isn't a quick process, and my next-year planning normally takes most of the summer.

With my hands in so many projects, reflection and planning are absolutely necessary for my success and sanity.  I just wrapped up a long-term contract and am feeling out a few opportunities for another.  I have a handful for short-term projects and need to keep feeding that pipeline.  

Sound familiar?

I don't feel that any of this is unique.  On top of the typical day-to-day, I maintain sufficient time for my passion projects - my nonprofits and in-development business projects.  I'm at a point, here in June 2014, to make big leaps and moves in 2015.  I have a business that is in the market sample/research stage, and could likely reach production and distribution early in 2015.  I have a nonprofit that will officially come to fruition after four years of work.  I have another nonprofit that may or may not move forward in this calendar year, and may or may not need a change of venue.  If I didn't revisit my plans, I couldn't stay on top of all of these projects.

Starting in September, I bring an intern into the mix.  This is exciting and both wonderful and horrible timing.  They get dropped into one of the biggest campaign seasons for the first nonprofit, right when I kick off no fewer than 4 major regional events in a week.  Right now, I'm trying to fit the intern into the workflow for the following 30 weeks.  If I didn't take time now to revisit my plans, I would shortchange their learning experience.

http://pixelenemy.com/ask-the-community-what-games-are-you-most-looking-forward-to/

Looking forward, I see opportunity. 

For my consulting business, I'm rebooting a series of classes, workshops, and seminars, as well as integrating webinars and podcasting.  I see new ways to reach new markets, and ways to integrate what I do for the benefit of my region.  I have opportunities to influence more young entrepreneurial minds with a large keynote speaking opportunity, as well as speaking opportunities at more colleges and universities.  I have more opportunities to reach and inspire more start-ups and new innovative industry in the area.  Realistically, I'm planning for failure and seeing success.

Looking back, I see where I've come from.  

For my consulting business, I am failure-proofing my client relations after some tough lessons from the first half of this year.  I see where I took some big risks and saw too-little return.  I took every opportunity that I could, but didn't seek out as many opportunities as I should have.  I reached out to more people and tried to be more influential, and now I can say that I am a major influencer in my region.  That all happened so far in 2014.

I'm not one to spend a lot of time looking back, especially not with negativity.  I did enough of that in my 20s and learned several major lessons.  The biggest lesson I have learned and can teach others is: Do not ask what went wrong; ask what you can do differently.  This has changed the way I think about the past and the future.  Instead of focusing on negative experiences, I focus on learning experiences.  I work to failure-proof my business.  I share my victories with others through what I've learned by missing goals.  Oftentimes, I meet and exceed those goals instead.

Change your way of thinking; change your life.  Spend more time looking forward than backward; but know where you came from and learn from the past.  Share your experiences and learn from the experiences of others.   And most of all - take risks.

Nicole
The Restless Entrepreneur