The gift that is ‘Plan B’

It’s a question I used to talk about a lot with my skydiving friends. When the jump is going well, all’s well – when it goes to hell and you only have three or four seconds to save your life, that’s the real test. This year didn’t start as planned. At the beginning of December last year I was celebrating our healthy looking pipeline that would see us through for 18 months. All that changed by mid-December as organisations chopped discretionary spend and the pipeline got slashed.

After some initial upset, I decided to take on the very true saying: It’s important to focus on the things that are in your control and to let go of the things that are not.

What was in my control was how I responded, behaved and felt about the year ahead, so I decided to first change the way I felt and to find the gifts. And there were many including:

• Taking all of January off and falling in love with my children all over again.
• Completing my marketing and strategic plans for 2009.
• Investing in my own personal and professional development.
• Completing all the tasks I have been avoiding or procrastinating on.

I joined a six week marketing challenge with Connect Marketing to kick start me into action. All the plans in the world are useless without some action. And accountability with others is a great way to stay in action.

So look around at what’s easy to lay your hands on right now, and make the most of it.

If work is slow, this is precious time to be strategic and to gather your focus and plan for the future. There are things around you right now that will help you. Open your field of vision and have a look.

What are they? What are your gifts that you can make the most of?

Pollyanna Lenkic is the founder of Perspectives Coaching, an Australian based coaching and training company. She is an experienced facilitator, certified coach and a certified practitioner of NLP. In 1990 she co-founded a specialist IT recruitment consultancy in London, which grew to employ 18 people and turnover £11 million ($27 million). This blog is about the mistakes she made and the lessons she learned building a business the first time round and how to do it better second time round. For more information go to www.perspectivescoaching.com.au

For more Second Time Around, click here.