It was only a week into the New Year and I already needed to smooth my wobbly start to 2014. But luckily, I was graced with a couple of serendipitous events yesterday that helped get me right back on track.
One was a phone call with a dear, long-time, long-distance friend who changed my perspective in an important way. This was a very big deal because when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
The other was reading the year-end newsletter article penned by Fierce Inc’s founder, Susan Scott. Susan is a very successful business woman and author of two best-selling business books, Fierce Conversations and Fierce Leadership. She is a woman who gets things done. But as she was reviewing 2013 looking at what she’d accomplished, she found she’d lost focus on one very important goal (a wave of relief washed over me that even hugely successful people sometimes lose focus too). So she offered a few strategies to stay focused that she was planning to implement in 2014. Strategy 1 and 3 I’ve used before (choose one thing, learn to say no). It was Strategy 2 that really stood out for me because it was so simple.
Strategy 2: create password(s) that are short goal statements. Do this for sites/accounts you use every day so that every time you log in you are reinforcing your commitment to your goal. And as Susan said, “When we have to write what we want over and over again, magic can happen.” Ingenious! I love it. I implemented it immediately.
I plan to change my settings on all my computers so that I have to reenter my goal-passwords everywhere. Remembering passwords has always been such a chore, but this year they will be easy to remember AND be a tool to reinforce the goals that are most important to me. As an added benefit they’ll also be strong passwords since they’ll be longer than the ones I use now (my IT guy will be happy). Susan also recommends changing the passwords now and again as you achieve your goals (my IT guy will be thrilled).
Like most of us, I see the New Year as an opportunity to reinvent myself. That’s a lot of pressure even though I don’t make resolutions (I don’t believe in them; I think if you’re going to improve your life, you should work at it every day not just at the beginning of each new year). However, maintaining the focus and commitment necessary is often a challenge especially when fear enters the picture. My daughter (who is a therapist) gave me a new perspective on fear that I continually work to incorporate: fear is nothing more than energy and we can choose to harness it or allow it to overwhelm us. Last year I made some really good progress harnessing the energy and I want to build on those successes.
Employing Strategy 2 is one simple little change in my daily routine that gives me the boost I need to not only smooth this wobbly start but to keep the confidence, commitment, and focus I need to achieve what I envision for 2014.
So it’s a hat tip and huge thanks to Susan (who will have another amazing book complete in 2014!) for sharing her strategies.
What’s your goal this year? I’m betting that achieving it is only a password away.