The forecast: stormy, bleak, doom and gloom? I don’t think so. You didn’t start or take over a business to improve your skills at playing the victim role. When you kicked into second and third gear, it was because you saw stars in the sky and you knew you were making your own choices, creating your own destiny. Right?

So, let’s look at the mess we’re in realistically. We have a chance to get out of this year standing upright, and to make happen what has to happen. To jump-start 2012– make the very best possible use of the next two weeks. That means, first and foremost, to do family relax time, pay attention to your SELF, and go with the flow.

In other words, abandon the maniacal pursuit you’ve been on all year in favor of jetting down, assessing yourself and your business. Refocus your day-to-day activities. Relax your brain, and set some meaningful, realistic goals that serve to both challenge and guide your interests and activities.

Did I say “meaningful”? Yes. Scribbling or txtg a nice-sounding statement about what you aim to do in 2012 may make you feel like patting yourself on the back, but it doesn’t mean beans about what’s real and possible and what needs to be flexible and specific and have a deadline attached. Who says? The Chief Goal Keeper.

If what you come up with as a target for yourself and your business fails to accomplish all six (That’s ALL SIX!) of the following criteria, you are simply not serious about wanting to improve your life. People fail at goal-setting because they fail to be flexible, to realize that not reaching a goal means only one thing: Change The Goal!

To be effective, any goal you set must be specific, flexible, realistic, due-dated, written on paper (and adjusted regularly), and carried on your person! Take all six of these steps, and keep your goals to yourself (because too many people who don’t have goals will try to discourage you from achieving your own!). 

If you do exactly what’s suggested here, you will be successful beyond your wildest dreams in 2012 because you will be making it happen… because you are an entrepreneur, and entrepreneurs don’t “go into” things; they make things happen. Will you? Are you an entrepreneur or a victim? Creating your own destiny is your choice! 

‘Tis the season to be spiteful, act angry, hide from creditors, put off paying bills, smile fake smiles, eat more sweets and fattening foods, drink more booze and soda and energy drinks, smoke more cigars, spit on the floor, sleep late, and curse the relatives who give you cheap gifts. 

Sound familiar? Remind you of someone you know? You might consider printing this or this or this out and mysteriously leaving an anonymous copy (or scissored excerpts) on that person’s desk, carseat, windshield, or stuffed into her or his coatpocket. 

Having come from poverty– I can genuinely appreciate the humbugness of truly destitute people at this time of year, as well as the humbugness of struggling business owners and managers who spend their days battling the threats and destruction of our nation’s economic quagmire, and their nights worrying about it. 

And I feel deeply saddened by anyone who continually chooses to not rise to the occasion of Christmas Season joyfulness — even non-Christians — because it is a season of great joy for all people of any faith, but as so many of us have learned about the leading horse to water proverb, none of us can make someone else’s choices.

Even with all good intention and wisdom, we really can’t reach into another human brain and push buttons and adjust frequencies and turn dials that will produce a happy, healthy, positive attitudes. All we can do is try our best to create positive supporting environments for those who choose misery, and keep the door open to them.

I say these things now, because I’ve been all over this issue of wasting life and opportunities through assorted career roles — from college teaching/counseling to management training/consulting/counseling to business and professional practice development consulting/counseling, to family and group counseling– and this period, now through February, has traditionally brought these dreaded negative behaviors for many to the surface.

Probably the single most useful tool for the vast majority of those I’ve worked with over the years is the one post that I keyword to most often on this blog, and recommend most to those I find in times of need is THIS. Literally thousands have raved to me about its value. It is highlighted in three of my books. It works. 

What else works? Prayer and gratefulness.

God Bless You. Thank you for your visit.

Please return soon.

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The more needy you are financially, the greater the temptation to make the sale and run, regardless of the prospects that holding out now can prompt a repeat (sometimes bigger) performance further down the road. “There is no road,” you might say, “It’s now or never! I have bills to pay. I need the money now!” 

If it’s a matter of food on the table for your family tonight, you’d better go for the sale, and should probably be looking for some other work as well. But small business survival tactics really must revolve around the customer, prospective customer, and employees.

I stopped in a small hardware store looking for a kitchen faucet wand, and hoping to get a plumber referral at the same time. The store was busy, but I was greeted by a young man with a genuine smile and eye contact at the front door who asked if there was anything specific I was looking for.

I waved my broken wand. He laughed and said, “I’m sorry we can’t help you with that, but I’m sure you can find one at the big home center up the road. Ask for Joe in plumbing. Is there anything else you need today?” I said that once I found the part, I’d be looking for a local plumber to install it.”

He called the owner over and paraphrased what I’d said. The owner asked if I’d be okay with a very competent older man, a retired plumber who likes to keep active doing small projects like this, and would be very inexpensive.

Who could say no? He went to his contractor book, then the phone book, looked up the name, wrote it on a piece of paper with the man’s number and told me when might be the best times to call. “He’s been coming in here for years, but he never left a number. Anything else we can do for you today?”

I went to the big home center, got the part, found another plumber in the meantime, but returned to the little hardware store with the proceeds of a broken piggy bank. I spent a lot of money on products I needed that would have been 15% cheaper at the big home center up the road.  

When you train your people personally and teach them how important every customer and prospect encounter is every day, how customer relationships pay the bills (including their salaries) and all it takes is knowing that everyone has something in common with everyone else, and finding that something is the challenge.

It’s both the challenge and the opportunity.

And all it takes to make it work is to invest something of your self. Is this true of marriage? Family life? Teams? Hobbies? Friendships? Community organizations? Neighborhoods? Certainly it’s true in every work setting — office, truck, computer station, basement, showroom, hospital, or factory floor.

Return On Investment odds increase proportionately with the quality and amount of effort you’re willing to put in.

Every prospect stands before you wanting to become a customer. Why else would she or he be there? Every customer wants to be a loyal return customer because having a sense of security and reassurance (TRUST in the seller) is half the sale.