Advanced self-improvement ideas for your new year
It’s that time of year. Whether we like it or not we are forced into some New Year’s introspection and planning. We take stock of the old year and wonder what we can do differently or improve in the New Year. I’m not a life coach, but I’ll share some thoughts that may help you align your thoughts and actions.
There are a couple basic things we have to consider as we progress through these exercises. First, everyone is in a different place, but we are all trying to generally do the same thing (improve) but, depending on where you’re starting your approach may be different. You may think that this is unique to you, but everyone is going through the same process.
Different People start at different places. Everyone starts somewhere. At the very bottom and basic level you may be just starting your journey. You may be waking up to the fact that you are caught in a trap. You are snared in a life that is physically or mentally disabling. You feel out of control.
Don’t worry, you are not alone. You are not the exception, you are the rule. The great mass of men (and women) lead lives of quiet desperation. The root of the problem is that when we are young most of us don’t get any education in directing our own lives.
We get school and family but we get kicked out into the world with no life plan other than the vague expectations of society. Into this void the industrial workplace steps to tell you the most important thing in your life plan is to get a job, a house and a family with 1.5 kids. That’s how they get an educated workforce and a grinding economic machine.
The Hollywood culture steps into the void to distract us from our malaise as well. They tell us that our happiness is dependent on being beautiful, driving a fast car and having sex with other beautiful people every chance we get. That’s the empty cultural validation that fills the void in our life plans.
Then you wake up in your 30’s two mortgage payments away from bankruptcy with a job you hate, dysfunctional relationships and somewhere along the line your body went sideways on you. Yup, all men and women lead lives of quiet desperation. What happens now?
Now you need an epiphany. For those who are just waking up, who are starting their hjourneys, they need to hit a turning point in their road. We’ve all heard the stories. They go to the doctor and are told they need to go on cholesterol drugs, they wake up hung over and depressed, they have some ife threatening accident or illness, or, just maybe, you sit down at the beginning of a fresh new year and say “enough is enough!”
Time to take some action. If you are in this early phase of your transition, you have had the epiphany and decided to change, now you need to take action.
Many people will go through this exercise in a negative way. They will look at the things that they are unhappy with in their lives and try to change them in the next year. What are all those bad habits that somehow, magically we’re going to change or stop?
Don’t do that. There is some reason you are doing that negative habit and it probably has to do with your negative self-esteem or how you value yourself. Don’t stack up all the things you want to change on January 1st. Just take one or two positive and sustainable actions. This might even take the form of admitting you don’t have the resources to make the change and getting a coach for that part of your life you want to change.
Whatever your positive action is keep it simple so that you can build momentum. Set yourself up to succeed. Build on that momentum. Now you’re on your journey and we’ll see you next year.
That methodology for beginners is as follows, Make a decision, take some small positive action, make it sustainable. Repeat. For example: You decide to change (get in shape, stop smoking, lose some weight) your make the decision to simply walk for 5 minutes a day, that’s a small sustainable action. You can build on that. Set a goal of 30 days, for example, to make it measureable. Set yourself up to win.
Now for the more advanced among you. What if you have managed your life fairly well? What if you’ve already made those basic changes to your life and are now stuck looking for the next step? What’s the advanced methodology to g3et to the next step? How do you hack it?
The basic methodology is the same. Decide to make a change. Take positive action. Make it measurable and sustainable. But, you’ve already got all the low hanging fruit, right? Where do you look for change that is not just incremental, not just “more of the same “?
The first place you can look is through a process we in the business world call segmentation. This simply means how can you chunk up your life into logical groupings that have similar traits or aspects? The value of segmentation is that by grouping and aggregating around traits or areas or categories you can gain insights that you normally wouldn’t see.
Applied to your life this typically ends up being categories like career, health, family, community and spiritual. When you first start out with basic life improvement activities they tend to be spread across these areas. And there is usually low-hanging fruit that is a keystone habit that supports growth in multiple areas.
For Example: you start an exercise program that helps your self-esteem and positively cascades over into your career and family.
If you’re in the position where you’re looking to make more advanced life changes you may use this segmentation to look at one specific area of your life that could benefit from a step change. It should be obvious to you when you start to run down your checklist. You’ll get to one area and realize that you have been avoiding change there because of fear or pain.
Then you can apply your methodology specifically to that area. For example; your family is great, your health is great and your spiritual life is awesome, but your career is nothing special. I’m just making up an example here. Then you can ask the question, “what positive action can I take to start the change in this area?”
What we will tend to do is to continue to make incremental improvements to the areas that we’ve already got under control. We try to convince ourselves that this is positive action where in reality we are just hiding from the elephant in the room.
The second tool I’d like you to consider when trying to set advanced goals or improvement initiatives is to find the high-stakes ground. “What do I mean by high stakes ground?” It is the place where for you there is a high perceived risk, a high degree of uncertainty and the stakes are high.
Why do you think Sales leaders, startup CEOs and commodity traders get paid so much money? Because the stakes are high. Now you’re thinking, “Chris, you’re insane! Why would anyone embrace these high-stress, high stakes jobs? Don’t we spend our lives trying to get away from them?”
No, I’m not insane, (I don’t think so anyhow). The reason you want to look for areas of high stakes is because they are also areas of high leverage. These are the places that will force you to stand and fight. The high stakes ground is where you will be called upon to make an accounting of yourself.
High stakes ground in any of your life areas will force you to learn quickly. Your self-confidence will be tested and you’ll be forced to face your fears. The self-growth from these situations is exponential. In business playing in the high staked ground, whether you win or lose, will jump you forward in your career and make you lots of money. In your relationship, health, family, community and spirituality the high stakes ground will lead to hard conversations and a step change in your quality of life.
The caution here is that you need to have done the work on your self-esteem, and self-value first before you venture into the high stakes ground. If you don’t like yourself or are not confident in your strengths and weaknesses and abilities, the high stakes ground is an exercise in self destruction.
Finally, the third advanced tool I’d like to have you think about is leveraging others. Many times life improvement initiatives are by definition a self-inspection exercise. “How do I get better?” But, when you get to the point where you have swept out the cobwebs and trash from your own life you can begin to leverage others.
Take the segmentation exercise and look at each area and ask the question, “What kind of big improvement could I make, what kind of impact could I have if I were to assemble a team to work on this?” This is a step change. It’s easy to work within your own control, but inspiring and managing a team takes a giant slug of personal growth.
For many people this in itself is high stakes ground, because to work with a team, requires a clear vision and the ability to communicate that vision. Look at each area of your life and ask, “What would the team look like for me to make this big leap?”
An example would be starting a foundation for your spiritual or community endeavors and beginning to recruit people to join for a goal. Or maybe in your career you realize that to take it to the next level you will need a personal assistant or a contract CFO.
I don’t know what it is for you in your life, but these are some ideas to find opportunities for significant positive change after you’ve done the basic work to get your life inline. Remember this life we are given is not a static thing. We are a tribe of adventurers and we cannot be happy resting on our laurels.
It is a continuous journey. The methodology is the same but the changes get more valuable as we progress. When we get through the basic life improvement initiatives, then we have an opportunity to really make a difference. This is where we can make the inflection from fixing what’s broken to investing in changing our world.
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