Start 2024 Here.
The ball has dropped, the New Year is here and you might feel like you’re the hare racing the tortoise – off and running into 2024!
Maybe you have new standards in place, new goals to work towards and exciting things on deck. You’re blazing off the starting line and I’m right there with you… But, before you really get running, I (and boatloads of research) suggest: you start here.
📍 Literally here.
Wherever you are reading this, right where your feet are.
What I’ve noticed from keynote speaking and working with companies of all sizes and people of all sorts is that the default way of operating is always striving for that next thing – while underneath, we’re scrambling to fight deep seated doubt, resolve core worthiness and find true acceptance. Like it or not, any real performance gains are held hostage by limited beliefs from the past. Limiting beliefs that are almost certainly reinforced by those around you and systematically rationalized within your culture.
Driven from that place of striving for more, without dealing with what you already have, will leave you running in place. Constantly reaching for more actions to take, more things to do and only producing painfully incremental results at best. Our typical answer? It’s usually: work harder, try more, be more disciplined, go faster. Sure, the New Year might be a little jolt of motivation, but that approach not only isn’t sustainable.
It flat out does not work.
You wouldn’t win a race with a backpack full of rocks, just by trying to run faster. And yet, that’s exactly how many of us function.
What does work is doing the work.
The real work.
The work to get present to those limiting beliefs, deal with doubts and confront the discomfort you’ve been delaying, distracted from or even deny needing to deal with. Reaching that next level isn’t about going faster. It’s about taking a page out of the tortoise’s book and going slower, getting present and handling those things as you take your next step.
When really digging in, I’ve worked with a massive Japanese conglomerate whose product team deep down didn’t believe in the strategy. I’ve worked with a leader of a public company who found they were more driven by wanting to be accepted than wanting to make a difference. Just about everywhere, when you really slow down, get present and dig in, there are limiting beliefs that need to be addressed, personally and within our cultures, to move forward more effectively.
It comes down to this: true presence optimizes performance. Without it, we’ll end up fighting with figments of thought instead of facts of reality. It doesn’t matter how fast you’re running.
So… start here.
Right here.
Where you are.
For most of you reading this, you probably know what that thing is that you need to deal with already. If not, I invite you to slow down and look. It’s there. And then commit to doing the work you need to do to handle it. If you need some help, share it with me here and I’ll share with you more specifics to get after it. That’s what real community is for.
I can’t tell you how excited I am for this year and all the breakthroughs we’ll share. There’s no question that we’ll grow in unprecedented ways. Let’s get off and running, but let’s get present first. Let’s do the real work.
Handle what we need to handle. And grow sustainably and meaningfully into 2024, together. Happy New Year!
