One simple question – has it been a successful year?
Welcome to inuRE’s final blog of the year. A time for reflection!
Like many, I had the desire to communicate something profound and reflective, something that encapsulates the past year. So, I felt a certain degree of pressure, as I wanted to communicate something that gives pause for thought, without being superficial. I thought about sharing a review of the year from inuRE’s perspective. This brought me to asking myself a simple and more revealing question – has it been a successful year and, what does success look like for me?
inuRE has been operating for just over 3 years. Unsurprisingly, the first year focused on establishing the business. The goal for the second year was to give the business forward momentum. Now, here we are, at the end year 3! This month I’ve been contemplating on what success looks like for inuRE – with typical performance measures, like profit, aside.
Success clearly means different things for different people and businesses. What I didn’t want to do is simply copy someone else’s definition of success or just review success in terms of performance metrics. I wanted to take a step back to think carefully about what success really means to me and my business.
I confess that when thinking about this subject I did research how other people and businesses define success. I saw many definitions that I liked and plenty that I didn’t feel comfortable with. So, I decided to start with what success doesn’t look like for me. It doesn’t mean:
Accumulating air miles;
Days away from home on business assignments;
Becoming a high-profile influencer;
Turning every business contract into an opportunity to maximise profit;
Staying within my comfort zone;
Looking at business performance metrics in isolation.
This got me thinking about my ‘end goal’ (essentially, what ‘success’ looks like for me) and fairly quickly 3 words came to mind – ‘peace of mind’. It felt good to have clarity on that! The next step was to determine the ‘formula’ that would help me achieve this goal.
I decided I needed to get clear on my values. This meant writing them down and then over the course of the month really challenging myself on whether they were just words on paper, or, the important question, if these were ‘lived’ on a daily basis?
I connected with the following principles:
Doing business with integrity;
Engaging with my clients and business partners;
Being prepared to say no where I believe that something is outside of my skillset;
Being prepared to step outside of my comfort zone, to try new things;
Keeping an open mind which is always prepared to learn.
The above principles may sound somewhat glib. Many such assertions are attributed to successful business men and women. Typically, principles like these are much easier said than ‘lived’ on a daily basis.
What I knew was that the behaviour of my clients and business partners would tell me if I was staying true to my principles. Simply, by how they engaged with me and their willingness to do business with me. This would provide me with the genuine measure of how well my business is positioned with respect to my growing definition of success – ‘peace of mind’.
So, has 2019 been a successful year for inuRE? Well, I have learnt that a list of all the things inuRE has been doing this year does not determine my success, nor do performance metrics alone. The true measures are that my clients and business partners are providing me with positive feedback and that my family is provided for! Does this give me peace of mind? Yes. I am feeling confident that 2019 has indeed been a successful year. I believe that success in 2020 will look the same if I stick to my principles.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my clients and business partners, and my family and friends, who have supported inuRE over the past 3 years. I look forward to our journey together in 2020.
Author: Gabriel Manoughian
