New Beginnings – 2010 Random or Deliberate?

Photo by sunskay

I have started to look at my business, Design Resumes, very differently. You could almost say that for the last 25+ years I have been running my business randomly. Life just kind of happened all around me and I was not executing a deliberate plan.

I randomly began a sideline career in non-profit management and support with Kiwanis in 1991. I was green, didn’t have a clear plan to help non-profits, I just evolved… sort of randomly.

In 1997, my journey with Wausau Whitewater began, a journey that was great but mostly random and just ended with my resignation on December 12. That, however, was deliberate. I finally realized my limitations.

Chris Brogan captured this quite  well in his recent post, Never give up, no-give up which references Seth Godin’s book, The Dip. I read The Dip shortly after I resigned from Kiwanis. It made sense. It was time to end.

With Wausau Whitewater, despite my passion for the people, the cause, the sport, the community, I saw the dip coming a few years before my final resignation. I saw how the same passion would continue to drive my focus away from any deliberate development of my own business.

I would be pulled, stretched, much like a rubber band. I would always be trying to juggle two sides when I needed to figure out how to be more deliberate. Then the light went on. Quoting Chris Brogan:

There is a right time to give up. There’s a right time to quit. The trick, and it is a HUGE trick, is knowing which is which.

This was the time for me. The right time.

Since then I made more decisions, using members of my team of trusted advisors.

1. One decision will impact my business and my marketing tremendously and take it in a whole new direction.
2. Another decision is to begin to build more awareness and connections with the career community. Even though I have many friends that are career professionals and have gotten to know them much better through social media, I have only met one personally.
3. A third decision is to critically look at all the financial decisions I make. This one will take the most time and adjustments but will eventually yield huge gains.

I will be more deliberate in 2010 and I am excited about the potential. This is a new year, a new decade, a time for new beginnings. As you look at 2010, are you going to live it randomly or deliberately? Will you make choices to grow, to move on, perhaps to quit things that aren’t working to make room to make deliberate choices with your trusted advisors? Or are you going to just let life and your career happen?

For me, I choose deliberate. I lived random far too long.

Thoughts? Talk to me. I talk back!