There’s something about the energy of spring and summer that gets us going – in our personal and business lives. The beginning of spring, Easter and the new financial year fall within weeks of each other and these feed into the sense of revitalisation and rebirth that most people feel.
I’ve also found that it’s easy to soon lose this momentum and I’m curious about how it affects our mood – more importantly, what can we do to prevent this from happening? What can we do when it does?
It involves making peace with the fact that sometimes quiet reflection and contemplation are as powerful as charging ahead all guns blazing. What would happen if you took some time out to service your engines before you put them into drive?
Read on to find out what I’ve learned about how to get going – and stay going.
Springing into action
There’s something about the otherworldliness of winter hibernation that provides an opportunity for a restart. If we’re more inclined to seek warmth and comfort during the winter months, it’s natural to respond to the world around us by allowing our own buds of creativity and opportunity to open as the days get longer.
Yet at this time of year, it’s also common to feel:
- A sense of overwhelm.
- The pressure of making all the changes you’ve told yourself you need to make.
- Fear about what those changes will mean and whether you have the strength, courage and skills to make it happen. What if you fail?
- Hurried – like you’ve gone from 0 to 60 in 60 seconds.
- Unsure what others will think of you and your action or inaction.
Is there a different way of doing things? What if we could harness the newness of spring in a way that keeps the momentum going?
The importance of context
I talk about this a lot and that’s because I believe it underpins everything. When thinking about what you’d like to achieve (personally and in terms of your business), what is it that you’ve come here to do? What human problems do you want to solve?
Understand what it is that you need to do at the source. Plug in to purpose.
Why? Because when you’re on a mission, you’ll wake up and get up, whether you find April showers or June sunshine outside.
With your overall picture in mind, it will help you to ask, ‘What’s this year going to be all about?’
And then you can think about:
- This week.
- This month.
- The next 90 days.
You’re able to slot things into place, even your more challenging aspirations. It allows you to dream big while staying focused on the little things that hold meaning.
7 ways to springboard into action
Make the most of your groundwork by learning how to:
- Simplify. What can you streamline, declutter or discard altogether? When I come into my office I ask myself how I can simplify things. If it’s not simple, how do I make it simple? What relates to my purpose and moves me towards my goals, and what no longer serves me?
- Track your habits. One study found that world-renowned creators and everyday knowledge workers whose jobs required a high level of creativity had one thing in common: ‘everyday progress – even a small win – can make all the difference in how they feel and perform’. Totting up the small wins is a big deal. Record your progress in a journal or download a tracker app so that you can enjoy looking back at how far you’ve come.
- Review. Before you can trim away the old or develop the new, you have to look back. What worked for you? What didn’t? What would you like to stop, start, continue or do less of or do more of? Sometimes we realise that we don’t need to let go of something that’s tired – it’s not that it’s defunct and served its purpose; maybe we need to rekindle it and bring it back to life. What can we make do and mend?
- Dump fear. The overwhelm, pressure and lack of confidence we spoke about above are driven by fear: fear of missing out, fear of what others think and fear over what we’re capable of. Do any of these things serve your purpose? By making your mission bigger than you and serving your community, your sector or humanity as a whole, you harness the power of purpose in overriding fear.
- Tank up with positivity. When we work from a place of fear, we allow it to spread. Look at how quickly a negative news article can disrupt a marketplace or prompt members of the public to panic buy. How often do rumours create their own problems? Make careful choices about what you look at and read. Be an active part of driving the narrative in a different direction that serves you and others better.
- Set the tone for the year. How would you like to feel by the end of December? Start with the end in mind and give yourself permission to enjoy the journey. I have a picture in a room at home that says, ‘Happiness is not a destination, it’s a way of life’. So how can you build happiness and joy into your daily hustle? You may have some hard work ahead, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun along the way. Make it about more than achievements and goals: what will climbing those hills feel like? How exhilarated will you feel when you reach the top?
- Build in breathing space. You can’t run a machine at full speed all the time; it needs servicing – in the same way so do your body and mind. Making space for fixing and oiling moving parts guards against fatigue, burnout and losing interest. Putting downtime into your weekly, monthly and yearly plan is not an optional extra or a reward for hard work; it’s a necessity.
Your one-page personal plan
As a Scaling Up coach, I know the value of planning – but it has to be of the right kind. It takes into account these seven springboard actions and is based on what you want to develop in five key areas of life:
- Faith.
- Family.
- Fitness.
- Finances.
- Friendship.
And something I talk about a lot, that I like to add:
- Fun (because if you’re not having fun, why are you doing it?).
It’s not a lengthy and laborious process, but it’s not a crashing-out-of-the-gate one either. By putting purpose at the heart of it, we get back in touch with our original spark and fan the flame. This makes for sustainable progress that will see us through the ups and downs of the year, instead of burning out and losing hope just a few weeks or months in.
I’m Phil Rose and I’m a co-founder of Ignium Consulting. Come and join us at one of our 4 planned Scaling Up workshops in 2023, using an internationally renowned system that has helped thousands of businesses tap into next-level energy. It’s like a snapshot of what we do in one hands-on workshop.
To find out more drop us a note or give us a call.
You can also tune into the podcast to find out more about putting together your own one-page personal plan. I love guiding people through the process, so if you’d like some expert help, please get in touch for a chat.