Do you or have you ever chosen a ‘compass phrase’ or mantra to be the theme for your business that year?
Something that sums up previous lessons learned or to serve as a reminder of your focus and purpose long after the new year resolutions have been sacrificed to a mixture of chaos and indifference.
It might be explicit or cryptic, but it serves to ground you when events threaten to carry you in a different direction to the one you intended to take.
I do, and have done since 2020, because it’s one of the very few pink and fluffy pieces of self-improvement theory I’ve found, that’s served a useful commercial purpose all year round.
Some previous examples are:
2021: ‘Don’t Own The Horse, Own The Racecourse’ – For when I decided to prioritise building businesses over building personal brand.
2023: Stockpile Resource – for when budgetary spending was starting to accelerate.
2024: ‘There’s Always More’ – for when caution was retarding growth in my companies.
I know all too well that people ‘believe what they see in the halls rather than what they read on the walls’ and such ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ Poundland-style sentiments can be nothing more than empty rhetoric.
This exercise happens to work for me and so if you try it, put whatever you come up with in large letters somewhere very visible from where you sit all year round.
And mine for 2025? ‘Play To Strengths’
Meaning?
I have a number of USPs in my business, I’d be a fool not to leverage them as far as I can for the sake of ‘trying new things’.
What will be your ‘compass phrase’ for the year?
To your success,
Martin Bissett
