Last year was a year of great change and great learning. I must have spent 50+ hours in various classes, 50+ hours in conferences and seminars, and 100+ hours in planned and unplanned real-life, character-development exercises. From these learnings, I’ve decided that 2024 will be a year of building traction, putting these new skills to work and bringing in energy and a different level of programs, clients, and initiatives.
First I had to decide that TRACTION was worthwhile and that I was worthy of the positive energy and momentum.
Thanks to many conversations with my close community, I am internalizing the notion that building traction at this time is a noble and achievable goal - one that I am worthy of. Thank you if you were one of those people - you know who you are.
Next, I had to make consistent and proactive choices to back up this new CHOICE. This year, I’m committing to aligning my energy behind select leadership and innovation, projects, people and causes.
My new disciple: when I feel that eager pull, that persistent itch, I first ensure that it fits the overarching goal and is of sufficient priority, worthy of dedication, resource and time. I’ve learned to walk away, to respectfully decline, to support from afar when this is not the case.
When the choice has been made, it’s a matter of managing my ‘feeling’ side, so my DOING side can perform.
Interestingly, managing my emotions has meant engaging with my body, distributing my energy from the right/emotional side of my brain to the left side of my brain. For example, I use exercises like breathwork, push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, planks, stretches, sprints, etc., to help release any spiraling energy, so that I can focus on the ‘doing’ side of my brain. (Yes, I’m feeling very fit these days.)
The ‘doing’ has become second nature because of my range of experience and my ability to build CONNECTIONS, ensuring that challenges and opportunities are distributed across an ecosystem of people and organizations.
When I get to this phase, it feels like I’m on ‘autopilot’, leveraging the skills I’ve developed over decades, connecting with trusted others in a tight ecosystem and ensuring win-win benefits for all.
I always make sure to circle back from the doing side to the FEELING side, so that I can validate the feelings, reassure their value, feed my purpose and instill hope and faith.
And this feeling step invites more CONFIDENCE as we return to the first stage and continue full cycle: aligning to PURPOSE, making better CHOICES, DOING more things better, accepting more TRACTION, with the help of CONNECTIONS.
Time will tell whether I will indeed gain more traction in specific ways. But regardless of the bottom line results, the character development and personal satisfaction goals are well worth the effort.
May these thoughts help make 2024 be a year of traction for YOU as well.