New Year Self-Change Leadership
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UvIGoYwflc]
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
-Niccolo Machiavelli
The New Year resolutions/goals/intentions/declarations/ideas/musings have now had over a week to transform our lives!
And by now, many have already been dropped.
The grand plans and visions can often be a drug-producing magical high and yet, when the rubber hits the road, many a beautiful intention ends up in the ditch.
For many, it’s easier when some institution or corporate change-management official determines that things will be done differently and we must comply. We may moan and groan, and yet — with something critical on the line (like our job)– we do or die.
Yet, taking that change-management leadership into our own hands — being both the stalwart of possibility while, at the same time, the comfort-zone addicted rebel — can be a fascinating process to observe.
Here’s a simple 5A Method to help:
Awareness
Simply stay awake to the fact that there’s a new kid in town who said they wanted to play differently!
Because we were the way we were for so long before we chose to make a change, it’s easy to just fall back into the old patterns and routines.
Simple structures like posting your goals and intentions in front of your face, where you practically have to fall over them in order to conduct your day, can serve as a daily “Hello!” to the new kid.
Also, making sure you’ve told plenty of friends, family, associates and co-workers helps ensure that the changes get addressed more often than they will if left in your head. Your inner voice is out for your comfort. Others being aware and engaged can get you out of comfort for your change.
Authenticity
Calling a spade a spade.
Did you actually do what you said you’d do? No judgment here, just being an objective and astute observer of your actions and telling it the way it really is.
There WILL be some form of internal resistance to the change. Otherwise, you’d already be BEing or DOing what it is that you want.
Being honest and dispassionate about what is or isn’t happening and telling it like it is gives you power to implement.
Acceptance
If change were easy, we’d all have exactly the lives we want right now.
If you designed goals and intentions for your new kid in this New Year, you must want something other than what you have.
Accept that change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a wide radius to turn a big ship around, and your old ways are a big ship that have been heading a particular direction for a long time.
Forgive your Self, and accept the love of your Self that had you bring this new kid into town in the first place.
Absence Analysis
What’s missing, the presence of which would make a difference?
The old ways of the old you had certain structures and patterns in place, keeping you in the old you.
For this new kid to take residence, there will be new structures to be put in place.
What new ways of operating, new systems, new communications, new mindsets are required?
The new kid will need a new look to this home if he/she is going to hang around. Bring in the interior (and exterior) decorator to refurbish the look of the place you call “You”.
Activation
Simply put in what’s missing…over and over and over and over again.
We often realize that we need to keep getting up after we fall down…until we just decide to not get up anymore.
“It’s too hard.” “It’s just not working.” “I guess this just can’t happen after all.”
Not true! An ongoing process of Activation of What’s Missing can only get us closer and closer to the change we seek.
As Winston Churchill said, “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”
Engaging in this 5A process on an earnest and regular basis can provide access to keeping those high-minded intentions on the road to real self change vs. landing in the ditch of defeat.
Got self-change leadership?
“Consider that all accomplishment is constituted by a series of resolved breakdowns.”
-Werner Erhard