“Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you wanted long after the mood you said it in has left you.” – Author Unknown

My last blog focused on Stage 1 of transforming ideas into action – getting clear about what you really want in 2017.  Now that you have done some reflection and gained some clarity, it’s time to get realistic and make a deeper commitment to change.

Working towards goals that don’t inspire you is a hard trek. This phase is about building commitment by making sure your goals you listed are really going to make a difference before you go any further. You need to be clear about what you need to change and why.

The next stage after this is creating a plan to achieve your goals. Why waste time making a plan for goals you aren’t really committed to achieve? Take another look at your list of “wants” for 2017. How committed are you to each idea? What’s really a priority for you now?

Changing requires being ready and willing to follow through on behavior that will actually make a difference. And it usually hurts a bit to move out of our comfort zone. The focus in Stage 2 is to turn your “want to do’s” into “will do’s.”

To get the most out of this exercise, I want you to be completely truthful with yourself and lose the self-judgement. Just take one of the goals you wrote down from the previous exercise. Choose the first one that stands out (or got you excited) and reflect upon the following questions:

What circumstances in my work and life make this goal important me right now? Why not next year?

What will achieving this goal give me that I don’t have now? How will I benefit? How will others?

How will achieving this goal leave me feeling?

On a scale of 1 to 10 how motivated am I to achieve this goal?

If my motivation score is less than 8 why do I have this goal? Is this really my goal? Is this goal what I want, or what I think I should want?

If this really isn’t your goal, what is another one that does reflect what is truly important to you? Be honest. Commitment to a goal is a decision and it needs to reflect what you value.

“When confronted with a challenge, the committed heart will search for a solution. The undecided heart searches for an escape.”  – Andy Andrews

So, the hoopla of New Year celebrations and resolutions is over. Most of us are back in the groove of our habits and probably just relieved that we made it through January. Lately, everyone I’m encountering seems to be feeling fatigued and a bit overwhelmed by everything going on in the world and in their own lives.

Heading into milder weather with the promise of sunnier days is a good time to pause, take a breath and reflect about what you really want out of 2017. It is not too late to start the year over. The next series of blogs will focus on taking you through my  5 Stage Model to Transform Your Ideas into Action.

Stage 1 is clarifying what is most important to you to experience work and life satisfaction in 2017. What is your intention for 2017? What do you want this part of your story to be about? We live busy lives and, for many of us, finding time to ponder what we want from life seems like a luxury we can’t afford.  We may look at this pondering as a waste of our valuable time – or only a distraction from the other things we have jammed on our “to do” lists.

But if we are not clear on what we want we end up going wherever work and life take us. We could end up anywhere or everywhere. We lose track of our intentions, and we get caught up in reacting. We are easily influenced by what other people think about what we should be doing. We fail to make the changes that are within our control. We let ourselves down.

Not knowing what we want makes it hard to say “no” to others and to set boundaries. It is tougher to say “no” to opportunities that look good on paper but don’t actually fit with what will make us happy. We aren’t as strategic about how we spend our time and energy when our personal visions aren’t clear.

What do you want to say YES to in 2017?  Your self-awareness is your anchor for everything. We need a reason to say no and we need to know why. You need a way to verify that your choices are serving what you really want now and in the future. How can we prioritize ourselves when we are not connected to what is most important for ourselves?

Goals give us purpose in life. We just need to make sure our goals are aligned with our personal vision of success.  The critical reflective questions become: Who do we want to be? What do we want to do?  What do we want to have? It all begins with thinking about what you really want to be, to do and to have in your work and life in 2017.

I invite you to make an investment in yourself by creating space in your schedule for some reflective time and writing. Find a quiet spot where you won’t be interrupted for one hour and take the time to answer the following questions.

1. Imagine this is New Year’s Eve 2017. You are looking back on this year with pride and satisfaction. What thoughts and images are coming to mind as your successes, accomplishments and what you are most grateful for in 2017?
2.  By the end of 2017….I want to BE……..I want to DO………….I want to HAVE…
3. If there was one CHANGE you could make over the next six months that would make the biggest difference to your work and life satisfaction, what would it be?

Next blog will focus on Stage 2 – Commit. Narrowing down your ideas and moving from to move from “want to do” to “will do”.

 

 

 

 

 

Most years have their share of ups and down, triumphs and losses, in both our private and public spheres. The year 2016 was a particularly intense one for many people. Facing the New Year brings up a host of mixed emotions. So how do we say goodbye to the year we just lived through and start 2017 with some hope and renewed commitment?

First, here is what not to do. Many people default to focusing on the negative and what they don’t have and/or didn’t accomplish during the year when they start a review. This is no surprise because we live in a culture that is a constant quest for “new and improved.” We are trained to compare ourselves to others and to be always looking for and becoming “more”.

Comparing ourselves to others from this mindset means we usually come up short. This mindset is the place where personal gremlins thrive and tell us that we aren’t ever enough. If we don’t pause and appreciate what we already have, and who we already are, the quest for “more” can be more demoralizing than motivating.

The truth is we are built to be more motivated by positive reinforcement than shame, fear and regret. Painful experiences can be catalysts for growth. But we need positive reinforcement to sustain the momentum required for creating change. Punishment is a lousy motivator for lasting change and shame just makes us shrink.

So, let’s start by saying thank you for what we already have in our lives and what we don’t need to fix. It is easy to forget how many people may be wishing and praying for things we are taking take for granted. Wanting what we have can be a radical and critical first step in starting a new year strong.

Say goodbye to 2016 by writing a list and saying thank you for what you already have in your life. Take 10 minutes to write down everything you can think of to say thank you for this year. From this mindset of appreciation your mood will likely shift. And, just as important, more likely you will commit to taking actions in the direction you want to experience more of in 2017.

Most of us need success reminders – especially when we are facing a new challenge and uncharted waters. It’s easy to lose perspective as we experience the inevitable ups and downs of making change real. To be successful with our resolutions we must find ways to stay motivated and hold the course before the benefits of our new choices show up.

So take pen to paper and record an inventory of your successes in 2016. Our success inventory is evidence of our capacity to change. Reviewing and acknowledging our achievements offers us proof that we are making progress and can rise to whatever challenge is next.

Our inventory can remind us to have some faith in ourselves and keep going. It can also take away our excuses for staying stuck. Recognizing where we are already successful can build our confidence to make more change and face whatever is in store for us in the New Year.

And don’t just consider your obvious successes. Think about areas where you made progress by taking smaller steps toward a larger goal. The lessons you learned when things didn’t turn out the way you planned. How you managed to show up and be gracious while getting through difficult times.

The purpose of doing a success inventory is to support you to achieve more of what you want. Take a moment to reflect upon the questions below. Acknowledge where you are succeeding. Recognize your strengths and the people who make up your tribe.

Want what you already have and declare what you’d like more of in your work and life in 2017.

• What are the three best things that happened this year that you didn’t see coming?
• Thinking about last year, what are you most proud of?
• What were your biggest successes in the personal area of your life?
• What were your biggest successes in the professional area of your life in 2016?
• What “smaller,” less obvious things are you proud of achieving?
• Where did you not achieve what you set out to accomplish? What smaller steps have you made towards larger aims that you need to recognize yourself for?
• Where did you miss the mark or make a mistake that needs recognizing? What did you learn? What are you proud of in the way you handled it?
• Who do you need to thank for their contribution to your successes in the past year?
• Entering a new year, what do you need to stop blaming yourself for?
• As you crossover into a new year, what can you not deny you are really good at?
• As you think about the year ahead, who are the people who really have your back and you want by your side in 2017?
• How can you lead with your strengths to get more of what you want in 2017?

Happy New Year

I’m writing this blog for me more than anyone else. Like many of you recent events in American politics have been all consuming for me over the last couple of months. I obsessively watched cable news and I can’t remember the last time I felt this invested in an election outcome. Even as a Canadian woman, the U.S. election felt very personal and historic. Yes, I was shocked and disappointed by the results.

And it is now time to move on from the intensity and stress created by constant speculation over events that I’m powerless to change. How do I know this? Because I was getting distracted, agitated and demoralized and there is absolutely nothing I can do to alter the election outcome.

Knowing when it’s time to shrink my perspective back to my own life is harder than it sounds. Accepting reality as it is – not the way you wish it were – is usually accompanied by some grief. The drama of it all can also be a powerful distraction from your own daily life. It can be very seductive to stay in the turmoil even though it creates stress.

And aren’t there all sorts of things that go on in our worlds that don’t make sense to us, aren’t fair and that we don’t have the power to stop? The truth is, in the various ways we engage with the world as a parent, partner, family member, friend, professional, worker, leader, citizens of the world, are there not endless invitations to get distracted by situations outside our control?

Distraction can manifest itself though worry, negative fantasizing and fretting taking up free rent in your head. In short, it is being preoccupied by problems you can’t solve, you don’t own and yet can’t stop thinking about. If I get too caught up in any drama or spectacle outside my control there is a danger I get distracted from my own responsibilities and what I do have the power to change.

As I spend precious time preoccupied by other adult’s self-created crises and fretting over their oncoming trains – what warning signs meant for me am I missing that I’d be best to heed? Focusing on what’s not in my control provides a convenient distraction from what I don’t want to feel or face.

This is true whether it’s playing out on the world stage, on cable news, my work world, or in my family or personal life.  The symptoms are stress, worry and feeling stuck and drained. It’s a creativity killer and not very productive.

This is why this kind of distraction is dangerous for me. What is within in my jurisdiction can seem pretty small and insignificant and mundane compared to the drama of world crisis and other people’s chaos.

When I’m overly focused on what’s out of my control, what I’m actually responsible for today does seems pretty lame and easy to ignore. In the face of the apocalypse – does it really matter whether I work out today and say no to French fries? Isn’t this also the kind of thinking that keeps people from voting and from showing up all in all the humble ways that make a difference in our communities, workplaces and businesses?

So I need to keep striving to stay awake in the world yet detached enough not to lose sight of what is within my power to affect and then taking action. Daily chores, “left foot, right foot, breathe,” and just doing the next right thing, is what gets me back into the flow of life again. In my experience change is a series of small choices over many ordinary days and requires my full presence and daily participation. I can’t afford to be distracted.