Be intentional on making this the best year yet!
Jan 08, 2021
The New Year has always been one of the highlights of the calendar for me. I love the build-up throughout December – all the articles that look back and top tens for the year ahead. (Of course, I’ve bought more vegetables than you can shake a celery stick at and may or may not have bought a $37 one time only deal or two.)
It’s the sense of possibilities, the sense of renewal, of letting go of the past and embracing your next steps that gets me hooked. When you sign up for a resolution it’s a way of acknowledging that maybe you’d slipped, but that you also have the intention to do better in the days ahead.
Nowadays, there are as many articles that describe how you’ll suck at New Year’s resolutions as there are about creating your best. But then, there are articles proclaiming red wine the kill or cure remedy of all time. I think we just filter for what fits us and are families in this moment. Right now.
Over the last six months, on twitter, I’ve been engaging with the #moneytwitter community and every morning, including weekends the guys and gals are hustling. They are intentional about building a different future – some around their bodies, some around financial freedom, others engage just to share. We all need a group that makes us want to do better – and they surely do. The most appropriate word I guess is intentional. Each day, more tweets bring inspiring quotes, challenges, advice and while the group acknowledge fear they don’t allow time for it. That energy is replaced with determination and perseverance. Instead, activity is king.
I’ve bottled that intentional attitude and every day incorporate activities that let me play by my rules. Want to know how? Here are some of my favourite tricks that I share with clients.
Set a feeling that you want to have for that day. Set up the day to be on your terms. Choose the mood you’ll get out of bed with. Will it be diligent, unstoppable, curious, positive. You get to decide. Even in the darkest times, you can still smile. You can still find good. You get to choose your attitude. So, don’t let someone else choose your attitude for you.
Stop and reset your focus temporarily. Whether you express your intention in mantras, affirmations, doodles, you get to choose how you show up. In my corporate roles, I’ve tried to do this whenever I enter a room – this three second hack has brought so much more energy and effectiveness in my communications. Of course, the room can bring many surprises but it’s far easier to maintain or return to my intended state of mind if I at least say it in my head. Don’t let the proverbials bring you down.
Set aside priority time for you and the projects that are going to move you forward. Tim Ferriss extols the virtues of intentionally tackling one thing each day that will move your business forward and again at the start of each day (I wish I could say before I open the emails) I get that job done. Again, being intentional has really cranked up my productivity, where I’m focussing on the most important elements of the business rather than being led.
In the height of my corporate career, the busyness definitely gripped my day far too often and looking back at multiple points in my career it feels like that got in the way of real effectiveness – chasing other people’s deadlines, responding to others’ dramas.
When you’re the boss, it floats up and you often can’t avoid dealing with those issues. But here’s the secret. You don’t have to let it take over.
So this year, each day, choose how you want to show up and let others’ shift around you. You’ll slip, you’ll forget. It’s a habit that builds over time but try it. You’ll be surprised how much of an impact each of those incremental steps take.
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