First, I want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and I hope that everyone's dreams come true. If I allow one of my superstitions to come to the forefront 2013 is divisible by 3 and thus that makes it a lucky year; hey, we all have our peccadillo's to deal with, right?

Moonset in Earth's Shadow
Luis Argerich via Compfight

Last year I wrote two somewhat different posts leading into 2012. One listed some goals of mine, although they weren't traditional goals. The other listed some business practices I felt I, and everyone else in business, should adopt for the year. I thought it would be interesting to talk about those that I didn't quite reach and to continue using them as goals and practices for the upcoming year. If you want to see what I talked about last year that I won't mention here you'll have to check out those other posts; isn't that sneaky?

One thing I said I would do was have a marketing calendar that I would stick to. That failed miserably, although I did do some interesting marketing this year, which included my writing of, then promoting, my $730 Million white paper; it's a health care thing so if you're not in that field it might not mean much to you. It actually got some pretty nice attention for awhile; I need to push it again.

I never started the third book but I did finish editing book #2, which was a big deal for me. I'm presently looking for readers in helping me assess and edit it some more.

I probably did less networking than in previous years, at least in person. This summer, for about 8 weeks, I was a part of an online networking process that started out with promise but fizzled when the guy who started everything changed things up. Turns out he had a different plan that some people knew about but not all of us, and it wasn't in my best interests once the new plan came up. However, I met some people that I still talk to, and that's never a bad thing. I've also decided not to renew my membership with another local networking group that wasn't giving me what I needed; that's going to be a major change since I've been with them 10 years. But hopefully it'll push me to doing other networking I know I need to do for my success.

I pretty much stuck to my rates in 2012, and I'll continue to do that. I waffled a couple of times, and that made me want to slap myself silly because I knew I was taking advantage of myself, and that's always a bad feeling.

I didn't plan my days or weeks out as much as I had wanted to, and that meant there were a lot of things I didn't get done. One of the problems I had was waiting for contracts to go through that fizzled later on. I tend to stop marketing and pushing when I think I've got a contract in hand and that's a practice I keep telling myself I must stop. You never stop marketing yourself until a contract is signed, and you're never obligated to anyone until a contract is signed. That's just good business; I was bad at it this year but it's something I'm keeping in mind for 2013.

The final thing is more of an epiphany than anything else. The question I had to ask, that everyone has to ask at some point, is if I was happy with some of the things I do to make money. Truth be told the answer is "no", and that was an interesting revelation. What am I going to do about it? That's the big question. One thing is for sure. My favorite thing to do is talk and write about leadership and management, thus it's going to get even more business attention this year. Most of the topics on this blog are on leadership; the new book is on leadership; and my newsletter is mainly on leadership. I'm not ready to toss everything else out yet, but the thought process has begun for a transformation; stay tuned...

That's all I have. Here's the thing; what I've said I'm going to modify are things that many of you might not have considered for yourselves, things that might work for you as well. Often my thinking in the open about processes don't only potentially benefit me; that's on purpose. If I've mentioned anything about that you believe you can apply to your business life, let me know. If you have anything else to share, please do. Let's all be successful in 2013!