It’s probably the time of year.
A time when people want to make changes… sometimes huge changes.
Sometimes changes in life, sometimes changes in career, sometimes changes of habits.
Having had time to think about ‘our lot’ over the festive period, many people turn the calendar in both pensive and ‘motivated’ mood… with a desire to make changes.
Even Royal Princes and their spouses are not immune to the effects of this time of year.
And any divorce lawyer, recruitment agency, or estate agent will tell you it’s a time when they get busy!
This year, there’s also a big political change in the form of Brexit too.
In addition, swathes of individuals begin their own changes, whether that be ‘Dry January’, or ‘Vegan-uary’ or whatever else seems in vogue.
As you can imagine, working with teams, businesses, and individuals on making changes, I get fascinated by what stops people sustaining the actions that make the changes permanent.
It has nothing to do with stepping out of comfort zones. For, when the going gets tough, where do people go? Yep, straight back into the comfort zone, and nothing has changed.
The real change has to happen on the inside, in the way we see ourselves, at an identity level, in our mindset, beliefs, values.
For those who know me well, you won’t be surprised that I have a formula for creating change. The MARS formula (nothing to do with ‘work, rest and play’)… It all begins with the M… Mindset.
Most of what you and I do is driven by habits, and therefore by our unconscious mind. And the pictures we carry around in our mind, which we aren’t really conscious of, dominate our behaviours (our actions and words) at a habitual level. These associations and images in the mind reflect like a wave through our lives.
So, in order to reach forward to new levels of performance and better results and greater success, we must upgrade the pictures in our mind – to re-programme the unconscious, if you like.
Now, it’s actually easier than you might think to do this. But how many people do this before they start the year, with all the desire for change that the turning of the calendar entails?
In my experience, people face change in one of three ways:
87% focus on coping with change/ handling change
10% focus on managing change
3% focus on Leading change
Don’t be like the majority… don’t find yourself half way through February having slipped back to ‘life as normal’, ‘business-as-usual’.
Keep the changes sustained.
All the external changes, over which you and I have little or no control, can carry on.
Time to be a personal Lead Changer.