Written by Paula E. Bird ©2013
We are entering week nine of the third month of 2013. Take out your 9th penny (what is this?). This is the month that will complete the first quarter of the year 2013. It is time to check in with yourself to see whether you are on track with your annual plan. We have four more weeks before the quarter official ends, so there is still time to do some tweaking here and there to get back on track if you have strayed.
There are reasons why quarterly reports are important in the business world. The SEC requires these unaudited reports from public companies as a matter of law. Quarterly reports provide investors with important information regarding the financial health of a company and its growth and earnings potential. Quarterly reports help business managers keep companies on the course needed to be healthy. Quarterly reports help managers pinpoint areas that need improvement. The business world knows that quarterly reports are valuable tools when it comes to measuring progress toward goals and predicting future problems or success.
Quarterly reports are also useful for individuals. The Best Year Yet folks refer to this concept as quarterly milestones. I set up some quarterly milestones to help me stay focused on my goals as the year progressed. I took the time to set up a few checkpoints along my yearly path, so that I could check in at those points and see how I was doing or alter my course of action to bring myself back to the place that I needed to be.
If you have not set some quarterly milestones, why not take a few moments this week to do so? Give a little thought to where you would like to be at the end of each quarter this year. Then note this information on your calendar so that you see where you wanted to be on those dates.
If you have already set up quarterly milestones, then think about where you are now in terms of this first quarter. Do you need to make some adjustments to get back on track? It is alright if you have drifted off course a bit. It is better that you make that discovery now and recalibrate yourself than to let another month go by while you head off in a direction that you do not want to go. If you have lost sight of where you wanted to be, take this week to consider how you might get yourself back on track.
March is an important month with regard to annual goal plans, because typically many folks have already given up on their New Year's Resolutions by this point. January was a month that was full of new possibilities. February was a month that was full of temptations to break resolutions (it is hard work to start new habits!). Now March is upon us, and many of us in the United States can look forward to a spring or winter break in another week or so. If we have lost some of our momentum by this point, then a break in the routine will derail us for sure.
Knowing that the March break will be here in a short time, let us at least set ourselves up so that we begin the break from the highest point of success. Let us renew our commitment to our annual plans or goals and get started again.
Remember that ninth penny you removed from the penny jar? How many pennies are left?
Remember the old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie, Swing Time? Here are some of the lyrics from the famous song in that movie, written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, which help me remember to stay the course:
Nothing's impossible, I have found
For when my chin is on the ground,
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off,
And start all over again.
Don't lose your confidence
If you slip.
Be grateful for a pleasant trip.
And pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off,
And start all over again.
And here's the link to the movie clip: Fred and Ginger sing the song.
This is the first full week of the month, and we are doing a Twinkle Variations review in my studio to help us prepare for our spring break. Click here to learn more about this.
No comments:
Post a Comment