I love that quote. Recently one of my friends wrote it on his facebook status. When I read it I wondered if I was just sitting in the middle of the track. It’s march now and I decided that I needed to reassess the year so far to see how well I’ve really been doing. The year of the Tiger. A year which started for me and for many with great hope. Hope for our businesses, hope for our personal lives and hope for our dreams. I believed that 2010 was going to be the best year of my life!
2009 was a pretty good year for our business. We had a lot of events, kept most of our students and grew modestly. In a year where a lot of other businesses were not growing at all, we were reasonably happy with our modest growth. 2010 started off with a boom for us. We had lots of trials and more joins by the end of February than we had until the end of May in 2009. Not a bad start! On the downside, we had the biggest amounｔ of quits we’ve ever had. So in the end, we are holding on, but not yet moving forward as we head toward busy season. March so far, has been quiet for us, but other schools seem to be booming so we are hopeful for a great month and fully expecting a great year for the growth of our business. So after some reflection, I am happy to see that our business is not just sitting in the middle of the tracks. We are on track with all Short Term Achievable Goals (STAGs) that we set for ourselves for this year.
It’s hard for a business to stay on track if your personal life isn’t on track, so I revisited my personal goals as well. In 2009, my personal life did not fare as well as our business, so this year’s goals were as much personal as they were business. Last week I felt like I was going nowhere. After reading my friend’s status, I decided that I was definitely just sitting on the tracks. Last week had been a bad week for my personal goals. I fell off the diet wagon three times . And then, while I was jogging yesterday, I realized that I was running faster, further, easier, than I had since January of 2009, when I messed up my ankle. My body is getting stronger again, healthier and for the first time in a year the balloon i was becoming had let a little air out.
That’s when I realized that sometimes if you just sit down on the tracks for a moment you give your progress a chance to catch up!
Success is a result of a cummulative effort, so if you fall off the wagon for a day or two, it’s okay. Your effort will catch up.
I still believe that 2010 is going to be a great year for us personally, for Smith’s School of English Kamishinjo（スミス英会話上新庄校） and for all Smith’s schools!
A couple of weeks ago I had a Valentines Day posting and some have wondered where the photo of my wife and I was taken. This third installment in my ‘Guess Where’ series would certainly be impossible if you didn’t know it was in Kyoto, but with that one clue any one of you may be able to pinpoint our location. There are several Smith’s Schools of English not far from here and enough National Treasures and UNESCO World Heritage locations to keep the most experienced traveler occupied for weeks!
