A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about shifting gears in your life and leadership, and I asked you this question: Are you at a shift point? I wrote about the importance of shifting from one gear to another and the feeling that I get (and I’m sure many of you get) that your life engines are whining and straining, in need of a shift either to avoid burnout or to accelerate the path you’re already on. The blog also highlighted the ways that shifting is often about an inside shift more than a shift in strategies, tactics or even behavior.
Recently, I slightly altered the shift question for one of my business advisory groups from “Are you at a shift point?” to “What are some key shift points for you (personally or professionally) in 2018?” Yes, I’m assuming there are shifts for you and all of us to make in 2018, and now is the time to be intentional about those shifts.
We all know about resolutions (which nearly always fail), settings goals and making plans, but we often fail in pursuing all of these because we fail to shift. Some shifts are in actions and behaviors, but the most important shifts are in your thinking and in your comfort zone. Your current comfort zone and thinking (aka perspectives) created the results you achieved in 2017 (personally, professionally and relationally). If you want your results to change in 2018, you need to make some shifts.
Many of these shifts will most likely be inside shifts in mindsets and perspectives. One shift may be in your willingness to be vulnerable and take risks in alignment with your dreams, visions, goals, objectives and missions. If you own a business, manage people or work with a team, it may involve a shift in your willingness to let the people you work with “feel you” so that they can experience your humanness and thereby connect with you. Most likely, it will involve a shift from impossibility thinking to possibility thinking. It will certainly require a shift in your trust levels – specifically, how much you trust yourself.
That may sound like an odd concept – trusting yourself – but trust (specifically self-trust) is at the heart of everything you achieve (or fail to achieve) in your life. It’s not the only thing, but it’s a vital element in how far you go. We think that going far is about actions, and actions certainly play a role, but more important is how far you will allow yourself to go – and that’s all about self-trust. This self-trust also includes how far you believe you can go in every aspect of your life.
You’ll certainly want and need to make some shifts in your actions and behaviors – they’ll be important elements of what you achieve in 2018 – but your mental shifts, your perspective shifts, your inside shifts and your trust shifts will be the key ingredients to your achievement and impact in this new year. Now is the time to get intentional about your shifts for 2018. What will they be? Will you trust yourself enough to shift?
If you’d like to receive these Daily Wake Up Calls every morning via email, join our community of different thinkers by signing up here. Please also join me on Facebook and Twitter.
Speak Your Mind