Happy 2017! Once again we turn a new leaf, a new page in the book of life. What have you written on yours so far?
For me, this New Year has opened into a very bittersweet flower:
A deep restructuring of our client engagements throughout this past fall has weeded out all of what I call "expensive clients." (These are organizations that demand a great deal of your TLC and attention and ask lots and lots of questions but provide little actual billable work). And I have to say, it feels amazing.
Tip: don't look at the number of clients you have. Look at what each one brings to your table and the quality of the relationship. Remember pruning always leaves fresh room in your garden for the more fragrant flowers.
There are the lovely comments I've received from people who bought our little
Book-to-Bar bundles. Ideas are great, but when you actually execute on them, bringing joy and surprise to people's lives, that means the world. So if you have an idea you'd like to make real this year, start now, and promise yourself you won't give up three months from now.
Insight:remember to focus on quality over quantity. Our media and society inevitably worship quantity (how much money do you make? how many users does your app have? what's your Amazon rank??). But that only generates competition. Of course it's important to reach the many rather than the few. But even the few can prove your concept. So focus on quality first, and scale later.
Then the inevitable realization that there is something in my life I need to change, and that that change is going to be painful. Painful because I never in my dreams anticipated having to make it. Challenging because the path winding through it isn't clear. Tough, for many other reasons. But as with any other big challenge, you've got really only two choices: stick your head in the sand and hope it somehow goes away or magically turns into what you want. Or, be one with the Force and face it head on. I've been exercising that first choice for too long. Time to stand up straight.
The key, I find, to understanding your life path is to see it all from 36,000 feet. Don't look at today as a marker for who you are or what you have achieved. Or any other single day. Just as you wouldn't consider one pearl to be a necklace... you need an entire string of them. So before you judge, before you let your ego color your daily reality, don't. Get up there to that stratosphere and get a better view.
May the Force be with you.
~ Birgitte
