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WORKROOM OPERATIONS

A Time to Plan, A Time to Coast
Sometimes not setting goals and delaying your next planned step is necessary.

by Kitty Stein, CWP, WCAA

Another year is about to dissolve into the past as a new year is ready to spring upon us. This is the time of year, I always like to take time to evaluate and plan for the New Year.

If this is not a tradition for you, I encourage you to start this year. Although you can do it any time during the year, the freshness of a new year is most inspiring. Plan time to think and put your goals and plans on paper. For some of you this will be easy. For others it will be a struggle, but it will happen. And then there are others who will take the time to think but will find only questions and confusion over what their next steps should be. This article is for you.

In the past, I have offered ideas and tips to help you plan, but there are times when you just can’t decide on the goal(s) for which to plan. For most of my career, I’ve been a goal setter, but not always a planner. Focusing on the carrot at the end of the journey has kept me charged and progressing. However, more than once, I could not come up with a goal that could get me motivated. And for those times, I drifted with the status quo.

RIGHT SEASON BUT WRONG TIME
I live in northern Virginia, and every year in the fall our trees offer a wondrous display of color. Not so this year! An unusually dry summer has affected the trees in a peculiar way. Normally the trees are past their best display with most being bare by now. This year, most of the trees are still a healthy green. Leaves are going from green to dead brown and dried up. A few trees are slowly turning color, a few leaves at a time. A precious few are very colorful right now. The normal season for these trees has been changed through no fault of theirs. So they wait until the time is right for them to turn color (or not) and shed their leaves.

Sometimes when we attempt to do something in a “normal” season it just doesn’t work. You may be able to set goals and make plans but the will power to follow through just doesn’t happen. On a much larger scale, we have witnessed and may have experienced the natural disasters of 2005. All the goals and best plans man can make cannot stop nature or the universe from making changes. Drastic changes are not confined to such drastic events. More often it’s a very quiet, personal awareness that may go undetected by those around you.

A TIME TO REST
We are often told we are trying too hard when something we have worked so diligently at does not come to fruition. And there is much truth in that phrase.

We live in a culture that abounds in success formulas, tricks, books, tapes, TV shows, etc. Our children must know what career they want well before they graduate from high school. With little to no effort, you can find advice on how to succeed in almost any career. The undertone of almost all the worthy advice is that you have to be continually working—doing something—to achieve success.

In this 21st century, technology changes by the minute and yet we cannot find that extra time that was supposed to be saved by this same technology. In fact, workroom owners not only overwork, but they tend to let business challenges—i.e. how to fabricate a new treatment—smolder in the backs of their minds. Have you ever awakened in the middle of the night (the only rest time you likely have), with an I-got-it! moment?

Rest, a time to stop the focused doing, is too often overlooked. In the Bible, after He had done so much that was good even God took a whole day of rest. In human terms that could have been many years or even centuries!

If you can’t figure out what you want to do next with your business, then give your mind a rest! Stop deliberately thinking about where you want to go from here. Try coasting for a little while.

A TIME TO ENERGIZE
When you finally bring yourself to accepting some rest time, then fertilize that rest time. Spend some regular time engaging in hobbies or activities other than work in which you can totally lose yourself. As your mind begins to engage in entirely new processes and challenges, it forms new associations for problem solving.

During one of my stretches of waiting for new goals, I started country/western dancing. Not only did I have fun and get some much-needed physical exercise, but my brain was exercised in a new way by learning line dances. I also met many new people and honed my social skills as a by-product. I’m not saying to make yourself find a hobby that will have a lot of benefits but, rather, I’m trying to illustrate that what you consider fun will likely have many other benefits to go with it. You may never be aware of additional benefits beyond having fun, but that is OK.
Even though you may not be burned out from what you are doing, your batteries may be a bit low. When you start doing new things that you enjoy and that make you happy, then that enthusiasm begins to build your passion and charge your batteries.

A TIME TO OBSERVE
You may have some ideas of where you might like to take your business next. Explore and learn. If you have never had employees, when you are with other business owners who do have them query them and listen to what they say. If you meet someone who has had a successful marketing campaign, listen to how they did it. If you have always been a wholesale workroom, listen to those who are doing retail. Ask questions. Learn the pros and cons of various situations. If you should decide to go in such directions, you will start out more prepared.

On the other hand, observe other professions. This is something I have continually done whether I was in a transition period or not. On a generic scale, business is business and many operations are similar across the board. You may have to customize some ideas to work for you, but even one small valuable insight can have a major impact on you and your business.

A TIME TO BE OPEN
Be aware of other industry opportunities that you have never considered. There are more and more people in our industry who are following different paths but all still within the industry. Maybe you will read a book that will spark something in you to write a different kind of book. Maybe a seminar presenter or someone sitting beside you in the audience will inspire you to create a new product.

When friends offer new ideas and career suggestions, do not automatically disregard them even though they seem totally foreign and impossible to you. I was a C student in high school English, but I’ve had a successful writing career for more than 12 years. Listen to all those suggestions you hear. You just may have hidden talent that you have never explored! For me, it took one off-the-wall phone call to start me on the path to becoming a workroom business consultant. You never know. You might end up inventing a new career!

A TIME TO LISTEN
Quiet time is essential to get the most out of listening. You must take time to empty your mind and let it be receptive to the universe. The best time for this is first thing in the morning before you read the paper and before you start mauling over the next job on the table.

You are listening for your intuition. How many times have you regretted not acting on an impulsive thought? Just knowing that there is something amiss means you are listening. Use prayer or a form of meditation. Learn to be quiet on a regular basis and let your mind roam freely. You might be amazed at what pops into it.

A TIME TO WAIT
This is the kind of season that you cannot hurry. Just like this year’s trees, your inner self may not be ready for the next step. For a reason only the universe understands it isn’t the right time.

Waiting is not easy. It can be very uncomfortable, likely more because we are used to instant gratification. If you are used to fixing your sights on a goal, then lack of focus leaves you floundering. By reason it may appear that you are wasting precious time, but be assured there is a purpose for the waiting time.

All you can do is to keep doing what you’ve been doing and coast for a while. Someone once said, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Waiting is part of the getting ready process. Like a child needs pencil and paper to go to school, you need certain things that will come to you in the waiting time.

Be patient and trust. I believe that God is my higher power and that He is guiding me every step of the way. I have been moved to make decisions that no earthly reason would have supported and yet they turned into blessings. I have been guided onto paths for which my reason could find no sense and yet more blessings than I could have imagined followed.

If you know where you want to go next, then get paper and pen and start planning. If a goal is illusive, then get ready to begin an eye-opening learning experience. The only plan you need is to see and learn and make the most of every day! Now isn’t that what you would be doing anyway?