If you’re like me, a new year often means looking back at the previous year and comparing it to what’s about to come. For some, this can be a downright depressing process, with most of the focus on past failures. For others, however, it’s full of excitement, with much to look forward to in the coming year. To which camp do you belong?

I won’t patronize you by extolling the virtues of positive thinking and seeing mistakes and failures as simply blueprints for what success is meant to look like. Rather, I want to point out that regardless of your natural attitudinal tendencies, planning and preparation play a big role in what you reap down the line. I’m a strong believer in that, and I’ve found that if we have a blockbuster of a month, all I have to do is look back a month or two to see what we did right to understand how to reproduce that. And it’s a truth that reveals itself in many things in life and work, including what we do on a daily basis. For example, when we work with our SEO agency clients, we often take a monthly timeout to analyze what went right from past months in terms of good results. They want to reproduce those results for their customers, and it only makes sense to look back at what’s been done to understand what should be planned for the future. That’s how success happens: planning.

We’ve been working hard at Words by a Pro, planning for the future to make sure that the services we provide are uninterrupted and scalable, thus ensuring our clients never have to worry about reliability and can instead focus on their businesses. Because of this planning, I know we’ll have a terrific 2014. Sure, circumstances happen in life, but they happen to everyone, and one’s response to those circumstances is what dictates the outcome.

So, bring on 2014 — we’re ready. Because as Lucille Ball once said, “Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work — and realizing what opportunity is and what isn’t.”

I wish you all a year full of smart, hard work so that your plans of the future have every chance of success.