Five ideas to get clear in a new year

What ever it is at play, by the end of a calendar year people commonly exhibit fatigue and overwhelm. It’s difficult to get clear at such a crazy time of year.

Equally strange in our first world construct of time, is the mood shift that takes place just a few weeks later, as the hangovers of our various indulgences recede.  It’s as if some mysterious syringe of resolve fills our veins.

These often unachievable goals tend to ramp up what I call, Multiple Possibility Disorder. MPD is a syndrome that pretty much ensures goals will wither on the vine of intention, just as the holiday season draws to a close and the new year kicks in, in earnest.

Few who are mired in too many ideas, offers and choices will meet their New Year’s resolutions by the time that crazy time of year draws round again.

How can we get clear?

How can we even out our intentions for the year? Working with these five ideas to get clear is not confined to the start of the year.  Whenever they’re done, they should be sustainable throughout the year, and the next, and the next.

Why is purpose powerful?

The word is bandied about too much today without genuine consideration.  Nonetheless being on purpose has remarkable cache. Given how much it is talked about, it’s surprising how few businesses can articulate in one sentence, and succinctly, why they do what they do for who.

Sometimes it is because they’re doing something that doesn’t work for them. Or they’re steeped neck high in too many ideas and offers and can’t figure out a purpose that covers them all.

All the more reason to do the hard work of clarity and unearth one true and undeniable purpose. When you can say, ‘I or we believe that …’, and you do, it’s extraordinary what can be achieved under it’s banner, at any time of the year.

What don’t you want more of?

Some reflection on the past can be productive, as long as it doesn’t fall into the ‘If Only‘ category.

Try this.  Whatever the year is now, subtract a decade.  What worked in those ten years?   What didn’t?  What would you work hard to avoid?  What would you work hard to repeat? What did you start that you didn’t finish?  Why?

If you answer each question with just one statement it will mean you have to eliminate everything but the worst and the best.  The process will filter out what you definitely don’t want more of in the future.  It should also identify what is worth a rinse and repeat.

You could do it with just the previous year, but a longer period forces greater insight.

What have you been putting off?

What’s that thing that has been nagging at you to get done.  Ask yourself why you haven’t prioritised it. Stop when you realise that all you’re doing is rolling through a series of excuses; too busy, too distracted, too whatever.

Either it is important enough for you to stop making excuses and prioritise it, or it isn’t. The best thing you can do is put it to one side and move on with other things.  It will resurface when the time is right.  Trust yourself and your purpose to believe that.

The magic of principles

Principles are your business’s unique thumbprint, the essence of your brand promise and delivery and the pillars that support your purpose.

You know it’s a principle when you simply could not deliver why or what you do without it. I cannot delete clarity from the work I do.  It is essential to my offer.  Nor curiosity, nor coherence.  What are your operating principles? 

When you know them, you also know your key messages. Knowing your key messages takes the noise out of your head.  It lessens the need to be, and say, all things to all men, all of the time.

Clarity of intention

Intention is a state of mind that compels directed action and drives forward motion. The hard work of clarity will help unearth a single focused intention.

Clarity of intention fans desire, because it exposes exactly why for exactly who you want what you want. Linked to your purpose, it directs only the next most needed action toward what you want.  That’s gold because it wins back a most precious commodity —time.

It’s a commonly experienced phenomena — it’s January and then it’s December and somehow the intervening months flash past in a blur of activity.

Little in this fast paced world is more demotivating than wasting time. Too often, our best intentions, set in the euphoria of the dawning year are bound to do just that.

These five ideas implemented together will safeguard your time, because you’ll take only the next logical steps toward your most wanted reality, for this year, and the next, and the next.

If you need help to get clear, call me to arrange a facilitated Clear The Fog Session, Sandy 0408 935 905