At the end of each year there are always celebrations and unfortunately regrets.  Celebrations about accomplishments and other good fortune and regrets too often about what could have been.  How would it feel if you could lessen or virtually eliminate regrets and enhance accomplishments?  It is possible and you can do it.  The key is to have a viable plan that begins with a thorough evaluation of yourself, your team, your business and your potential. 

The manner in which you do this can vary; but, here are 10 good evaluation questions offered to help you in the process as well as 3 additional questions that should help you broaden your analysis even more. Remember, be honest in your analysis and also after you have completed the process, consider allowing those who are part of your team either professionally or personally to add their thoughts. The result just may point you in a winning direction. 

Think through the questions.  Be sure you understand what is being asked and what will be demanded.  Only honest self appraisal will enable you to gain the answers and produce the results you desire.

1. What specific steps have you taken to develop a credible and viable business plan for the New Year that is focused on current and future opportunities? 
2. What are 3 “musts” for the New Year?
3. What are you currently tolerating in your business or role that you will not tolerate in the New Year?
4. What are you “leaving on the table” as you plan for the New Year?
5. What will you have to sacrifice to achieve the success you desire in the New Year?
6. How will others know you will be doing what you do best in the New Year?
7. In the New Year, how will you work to “build others up” and avoid “tearing others down?”
8. In the New Year, how will you avoid being “wrapped up in yourself” so that you can “be yourself? 
9. What is your most demanding challenge as you look into the New Year?
10. What are your opportunities for business and personal improvement in the New Year?

Here are your 3 bonus questions.  Once again, be honest with yourself in answers and also be thorough in your thought.  This is your future you are addressing.  Make it important!

1. What will enable you to laugh more in the New Year?
2. What makes you stop and comment: “What made me do that?”
3. What 4 commitments will you make that will enable you to better manage stress, gain greater balance in your interaction with those special to you and not lose focus on your goals?

As you may see from the questions, this will demand thought.  Thought produces ideas which in turn will produce viable actions you can take to enable you to have the most productive year ever.  It is possible and you hold the key to that success initiative.  Devote the time to the process and build the future you desire.

Famed educator John Gardner once said this:  “Winning individuals do not leave the development of their potential to chance.  They pursue it systematically and look forward to an endless dialogue between their potentialities and the claims of life—not only claims they encounter but the claims they invent.”  By careful analysis, thorough attention to planning and relentless determination to execute, you can also build the pathway of a “winning individual” in the New Year.  Fill your mind with visions of accomplishments; your plans with a framework of viable actions; and, discard “whining” that produces regrets so that you will achieve the best results yet in the New Year.