Setting resolutions can feel so cliché - so instead i'll propose two different ways to spend time to reflect on how you want to make 2022 awesome.

1) If you're like me and that feels really challenging, you can use a "Wheel of Life" to think about / rate each aspect of your life to figure out where you want to focus more energy. This exercise is used to bring awareness.

2. An activity from fellow coach Christina Boyd-Smith that I think is incredible (link below to her blog):
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Take 3 pieces of paper.

1. On the first page, write down all your disappointments, failures, losses, and breakdowns.
2. On the second page, write all your successes, celebrations, accomplishments and breakthroughs.
3. On the third page, write everything you learned about life and yourself in 2022.
4. When your lists are complete, sit down and analyze them for themes. Look at the big picture. What do you see?
5. While looking at the big picture of your year, use what you see to create the theme/words/intentions that will guide your new year.

https://boydsmithcoaching.com/blog/before-you-sink-into-your-new-years-resolution-read-this

I love this perspective of individuals not having jobs but responsibilities. How empowering to feel the ownership of something and be able to articulate that. Definitely something that I used with my last team and really loved, is having a board of process ownership that each individual chose to be responsible for. That way, when you do an introduction it's far beyond job title, it's sharing what you feel responsible for and generally it's a topic area you wanted to learn more about and have oversight of. 

Another topic I loved from this book is chasing unsustainable levels of innovation and growth. It's important to balance innovation with a strategic plan which is no easy feat. You don't want an innovation team to feel constrained, but you do need exceptional product management to ensure it's useful in the marketplace, able to be sold to your customers and receives the attention after incubation that's necessary!

Your guide to crushing your new role, the first 90 days. Key points that I took away from the book (y'all know, I LOVE lists):

Leading Former Peers:
1. Accept that relationships must change
2. Focus on early rites of passage
3. Re-enlist your (good) former peers
4. Establish your authority deftly
5. Focus on what's good for the business

Building Credibility:
How would others answer the following about you?
1. Do you have insight and steadiness to make tough decisions?
2. Do you have values that they relate to, admire and want to emulate?
3. Do you have the right kind of energy?
4. Do you demand high levels of performance from yourself and others?

Personal Credibility is built on...
- being demanding but able to be satisfied
- accessible but not too familiar
- decisive but judicious
- focused but flexible
- active without causing commotion
- willing to make tough calls, but humanely

Final notes on Law of Attraction
Let's talk about clarity, limiting beliefs and gratitude.

​Clarity
A topic I love to use with mentees showed up in the book this week on clarity, "observing contrast is essential because it helps you become clearer about what you want to do". All experiences help us find a bit more clarity, if we let them.

Limiting Beliefs
The most common source of doubt (negative vibrations) is from your own limiting beliefs. They may sound like, "i'd like to lose weight but it's hard because i'm old", "I'd like to be a manger, but i'm too young", "i'd like to write to make friends but i'm too shy".
You can start to break through those by using the skill posted last Friday, "what would it look like if I didn't believe that?", "what if that isn't true?"

Finally some "vibration" and gratitude topics from the book I liked:
1) Take time to appreciate anything. It’s the feeling that’s attached to your appreciation that is important. Appreciation and gratitude help you offer strong, positive vibrations.
2) The distance between your vibration and someone else’s vibration is equal to the amount of resistance (negativity) you feel when you are with them.

Throw back to a book that has carried meaning throughout my career on work / life balance, Juggling Elephants.

If you're struggling, I recommend you pick up this book. It's a quick read told in story form about a man who visits the circus. He asks the ring master, what is the key?

Viewing your life as three rings, there's the work ring, the relationship ring and the self ring. You can't jump from ring to ring when convenient and expect to have lasting, fulfilling success.

What if you strategically planned your life like a ring master would, with a plan?
1. You cannot be in all three rings at the same time
2. The ringmaster always reviews the next act before bringing it into the ring (i'd also add here, reviewing the last act is important).
3. The key to success is having quality acts in all three rings
4. Figure out what ring you need to be in RIGHT NOW, at this moment.
5. Decide what acts you should be focusing on right now.

"I have to give my full attention to the ring I am in and when it's time, I must move on to the other ring as quickly as possible"
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There are SO many other great topics in this book, please if this interests you - pick this book up!

This book was admittedly not my favorite, but I needed to understand what so many of my colleagues enjoyed. I find the book a bit preachy and overly positive, however, here are a few things I liked and would share with my mentees:

1. "Today there may be items on your to-do list, but you also have a long list of things you have achieved".
2. The path to inner peace for some of us is embracing and welcoming the chaos.
3. Accept and welcome help from others.
4. "Someone else's opinion of me is NONE of my business".

Particularly number two is really interesting for me. When work gets really busy and feels chaotic for me, sometimes it's a matter of bringing in more project management but sometimes it's just embracing the chaos. I certainly coached my team around this in the past!

Personally, I believe if you bought this book for every male identifying person you work with or live with, the world would be a better place. I love this list of twelve behaviors that keep women stuck and I invite you to learn more about these or question where you've seen them from the women around you. I'm making it a point to start identifying and speaking up when I see these. 

#2 on this list is covered in my personal brand workshop, reach out if you would like the exercises or to be coached around it.

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​I recently finished the book  which was featured in the press (yes, i'm late to the game!). It was a gripping read that was hard to put down - there's vulnerability, grit and hope for the main character.
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If you haven't read it, I recommend it as a page turner / great beach book!