Fall is full of fresh starts. Back-to-school. The commemoration of the Jewish new year. There’s something exciting about this time, and the promise it holds for the months to come.

I suppose it’s human nature when you’re starting anything new to crave the comfort of a familiar routine. Defined as “a regular way of doing things in a particular order,” routines make certain aspects of life run more smoothly. But as tempting as it can be to routinize your life or business, you need only read on to the second part of the definition, which cautions routine can be “a boring state or situation in which things are always done the same way.”

I spoke about this last week when I was asked to share my experiences as an entrepreneur with the Business for Corporate Communicators class at the School of Communications, Media & Design​ at Centennial College. I related the story of how, when I started Felicity, I wished on a daily basis that we had tried-and-true templates, samples of key documents, and processes, as we put ours in place. But I quickly realized that as much as it was both disarming and time-consuming to start everything from scratch, it brought the opportunity to ask ourselves:

What can we do differently? Better?
How can we bring new perspectives to business challenges?
How can we approach this so it exceeds our clients’ expectations?
Is there a way to make this easier or more effective?
What else can we do so our associates love working with Felicity?
How can we ensure fun is always part of the equation?

Now that Felicity is heading into its fifth year in business, we have established ways of doing things based on the answers derived from these questions. Still, I never want these to become “routine” to the point of being “boring.” That’s not so say we should always be reinventing the wheel. But if there are opportunities to help that wheel roll faster, or veer off the beaten path into exciting and uncharted territory, we will always find a way to make it happen. The one routine we do maintain, is to ask ourselves these questions every time we work as a team and with our clients to help achieve a business goal.

So as we sharpen our pencils and aim to stay fall fresh year-round, we look forward to sharing with you some exciting new developments at Felicity over the coming months.