I truly believe that the new year is the closest thing in life that we get to a “do over.” We can wipe the slate clean and start over with a brand-new, optimistic perspective of promise and promises and resolutions to do what we do better—both in and out of the office.
I have a client who decided in early January that this is finally the year he’s going to align his intentions with his actions. He knows he’s not achieving his full potential as an executive. He finds himself bogged down in the “swarm” of his job, spending most of his time with emails, calls, texts, etc. and not getting any of his priority work done. He goes home exhausted and discouraged, having done so much and accomplished so little.
He wanted some advice on how to have a different outcome this year. Here’s what I told him:
The 5 Truths of Success
- Success involves doing what you don’t want to do. No one wants to conduct employee reviews and hold people accountable. Doing expense reports is not fun. But these non-urgent yet important things add up to success if you do them consistently.
- Get uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable you get every day, the greater your success. Seriously. That’s how you push yourself. This means actively working to get better at something you currently are not good at doing like public speaking or presentations, or making new-relationship calls every day if you are in sales. But here’s the thing: There’s usually little reward in what you are comfortable doing—the real rewards are found way out of your comfort zone.
- Success is the reward for setbacks. Big dreams have many tests. Dream big, expect tons of setbacks and plan on experiencing failure. Then let those failures become your motivators.
- The only real failure is quitting or settling. Don’t be a quitter. If you set solid, achievable (notice I didn’t say “easy”) goals, you can reach them. Create a simple mantra to tell yourself when the going gets tough: “Move forward. Don’t quit. Keep going. Finish.” Zig Ziglar said, “Most of us are good starters, but poor finishers.” Be a finisher.
- “Success does not feel successful; it feels stressful.” Kevin Elko said that. And I think he’s right. But keep in mind that there are different kinds of stress. Make sure the stress you’re feeling is because of your hard work on your goals—not the non-productive “swarm.”
Notice something about success? It’s not necessarily fun. Matter of fact, it’s the opposite of fun. It involves all kinds of setbacks. It’s uncomfortable. It’s hard work. It’s even stressful. But the rewards for not quitting (or simply settling) are great.
But this not-fun part—that’s why most people don’t make their resolutions a reality. They look at what they want to achieve without spending time considering how to do it. It’s easy to say you want to lose 20 pounds. And it might even be easy to drop two or three or even five during the first few weeks. But then those next five pounds and the next 15 weeks become much more difficult. It’s hard to eat the right things and exercise every single day. There are setbacks and weight gain. Most people give up.
So, as you reflect on your resolutions and your hopes and dreams for the new year, I suggest the following:
First, assess why you want to do something. In the example above, the “why” of weight loss could be a family history of diabetes. An even better “why” would not be fear-based but instead focused on longer life, better health and more happiness.
Second, realize from the beginning that the road to success is full of setbacks, stress and frustrations. Having a way to monitor your daily progress will keep you moving forward during these inevitable tough times.