How many times we've failed isn't as important as how many times we've stood up and continue our pursuit of success and happiness. At least this is what I'd like us to realize as we enter the new year.

<a href="http://www.lloydluna.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Pambansang-Inspirasyon-ng-Pilipinas.jpeg"><img src="http://www.lloydluna.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Pambansang-Inspirasyon-ng-Pilipinas-300x200.jpeg" alt="Pambansang Inspirasyon ng Pilipinas" width="300" height="200" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6459" /></a>Last week, I did a motivational talk before two real estate giants in Manila during their sales kick off rally. Most companies do this every year. They gather their sales people and hire a motivational speaker to speak and try to encourage their people to sell more this time as the speaker tries to equip them with knowledge, wisdom and stories.

Hopefully after the one-hour program or so, participants would leave the venue with inspiration and drive to face the new year and yes, painful or not as it is, make the best effort to hit their quota for this year. It's amazing to know how their mix of emotions from being happy to being excited to being afraid to being uncertain to being hopeful and more. It's because this year, anything can happen.

Should you want to succeed this year, you will need to have a beginner's mindset—yes as if nothing happened the previous year.

There are many things that happened last year, a very good mix of ups and downs, good and bad. The danger of clinging to last year's excellent performance is you can get comfortable with your past record and therefore may slow down your development. The danger of remembering you worst performance is it can make you want to quit and choose another career.

Forgetting that things that happened last year doesn't mean not taking everything you've learned. It only means that you have to accept the fact that you're starting with a blank canvas. There's nothing yet in your sales report and you have to start again.

The thing is there are many strategic moves that worked well for you last year that may totally ruin your new year because they may no longer work. That is why it is important to calibrate the plans and strategies. Should you want to be a better performer this year, you'll have to have a better plan. Definitely a far better plan than last year's.

Start again with a beginner's mindset, open for all opportunities for learning and you will make this year the best year yet.