Why business leaders need to reinvent themselves

Keeping a daily journal and talking to a mentor can help improve personal and professional growth

Having a mentor can help entrepreneurs improve their skills and understand their shortcomings. Getty Images

The final quarter of the year is one of my favourite times.

I enjoy the cool weather and the opportunity to plan for the year ahead.

This often involves a review of what I have accomplished over the past year and also provides an opportunity to shed unnecessary business weight that I don’t wish to carry with me for the next year.

I have been an entrepreneur for more than a decade, but the past two years were the most transformative.

I pivoted and expanded some services of my business but have also been in stressful situations that taught me some of life’s greatest lessons.

Throughout all the changes I went through as my business grew, what has remained constant as an entrepreneur is reinventing myself.

The more my business grows, the more I appreciate the process of reinventing myself and the benefits it brings to my company.

When I first ventured into entrepreneurship, I had a different vision of where I thought I would end up in a decade.

When I look at my early business plans, I realise how much my vision has altered and how I ended up in places I couldn’t have imagined.

As important as it is to have short-term and long-term plans for our careers or businesses, it is equally important to keep in mind that your plan could completely change – and you need to embrace that.

Does reinventing yourself mean scratching out everything and starting over? Not necessarily.

For me, it was a process of yearly, quarterly and monthly reviews of how I conduct my business, how my company has grown and analysing what is hindering my personal and professional growth.

It’s a continued process of editing and improving. It’s a process of quickly analysing where my business is heading, where it’s not performing well and what can I change to realise my goals faster.

Two things have been helpful for me: Keeping a daily journal and having a mentor or business coach to speak with for advice.

When I was younger, a relative advised me that if I wanted to see something clearly, I have to write it down and read it and that this process would allow me to look at things from a fresh perspective.

I incorporate this step into my business daily. I write down my goals, my notes for the day and then make a diary entry of everything that went well and what needed to be improved.

I review my journal entries constantly, looking for patterns and spotting small issues before they become something bigger.

These journal entries have helped me to realise what I was doing wrong and where I needed to reassess matters.

Whenever I faced an issue, what helped me is writing about the issue, assessing it and jotting down possible solutions.

Although my journaling process helped me tremendously, having a mentor who I constantly spoke with and consulted helped me see where my shortcomings were.

The mentor advised me on what I can do to improve my skills and become the entrepreneur and woman I aspire to be.

Entrepreneurship is a dynamic journey. It drives us, challenges us and makes us completely uncomfortable.

To ensure that our journey leads us to where we desire, reinventing ourselves is key to our success.

Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer and communications adviser based in Abu Dhabi.