Are you running into a roadblock, facing a problem you can’t seem to solve, no matter what you do?

A good solution exists – you just know it does – but you can’t see or grasp it yet?

If so, take a step back.

Consider the problem from a fresh perspective.

Good ideas often emerge if you change the way you look at, frame, or approach a problem. Often, trying a new creativity tool can help you consider a problem from a new point of view.

Here are three tools you can use to provide a fresh perspective. One of these, or other similar creativity tools, may lead to the breakthrough you seek:

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Fresh Coat of Paint

1. Think of successes and achievements in your work and life.

2. “Relive” each of these successes for a minute or two. What did each experience look, sound, and feel like?

3. Next, when you think of these successes, what color comes to mind, if one does?

4. Now, think of the problem you’re trying to solve.

5. When you do, what color comes to mind?

6. Imagine taking the color you associated with success and painting or pouring that color on the problem.

7. What does that circumstance look and feel like now, in the new “success” color? Are there ideas, impressions, or new solutions that emerge as you imagine experiencing this transformed circumstance?

8. Complete the exercise by writing down impressions, images or other details that may be helpful as you solve the problem.

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Fast Forward

1. Imagine “fast forwarding” to a time when the problem has been solved. What do you see, hear and feel in that problem-resolved world?

2. Now, look back from that time, to where you are now. As you imagine the path to success, how was that problem solved?

3. Complete the exercise by writing down any ideas, impressions, images or other details that may be helpful as you solve the problem.

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Random Word

1. Think of the problem you’re trying to solve.

2. Describe the situation you expect you’ll experience when the problem has been solved.

3. Now, select a random book that you see nearby.

4. Open to any page.

5. Without looking, point to a word. Now look at it. What’s the word?

6. Answer the question, “What else does this word make me think of? How might these ideas help me see the problem in a new way? How might these ideas help me solve it?”

7. Complete the exercise by writing down any ideas, impressions, images or other details that may be helpful as you solve the problem.

When we’re around excellence, it helps bring out our own best performance.

Think back. Surely there are times in your life when this has been true for you, too.

It’s why there’s value in watching great sports performances, seeing excellent theater and movies, reading great fiction, going to art museums, enjoying wonderful food, and surrounding yourself even briefly in the beauty of nature.

There’s lots more excellence you can choose to immerse yourself in, too.

I recall one particular experience  during a summer when my husband and I played tennis almost every weekend when summer with friends from the company where he worked.

Hoping to get in just enough improvement to make the next weekend’s tennis matches easier and more fun, Gary and I went out to practice one day after work at a nearby park.

On this particular evening, the courts were all busy so as we waited for our turn. As we did, we watched one couple play. It was great fun  to see, for they played with great ease and excellence.

When they left, and we started to play on the court where they’d performed for many of us who were watching that day, our game seemed to be almost magically elevated in many ways.

It was as if the excellence they’d brought had been left on that court, and we were the beneficiaries of the momentary circumstance.

Eventually, their excellence seeped away from that spot and, well, our normal game returned.

But for that brief time, playing excellent tennis was fun.

And it showed us that we might someday reach an elevated state of play with consistency if we kept practicing, with consistency.

You can elevate your own game, whatever it is, if you steep yourself in excellence of any kind.

Here are a few reasons why:

1. It inspires you.

Excellence of any type is spirit-lifting.

Whether at the Olympics, the exhibit of a great artist, or at a major awards program  recognizing top performance in any field, looking at, and up to excellence can have the same effect. It raises your sense of what is possible when positive intention, the force of will, abilities, practice and preparation – and a bit of luck, too – are combined to meet challenges and create new opportunities.

That inspiring effect occurs whether the people who produced the great result were expected to, or theirs was in overcoming-all-odds story.

2. It teaches, or reinforces the excellence mindset in you.

Sometimes the best thing about being around others’ excellence is being steeped in the excellence mindset.

Top performance takes dedication, focus, and sometimes getting out of your own way to create or release excellent results.

Knowing what someone who produced greatness thought and felt, how they prepared  for it, and how they overcame their own nervousness or stage fright, if it was part of the experience, can be enlightening.

3. It gives you new ideas for yourself.

Excellence in other realms can increase your creativity, and spark new ideas for a project, goal, or challenge you’re working on.

And being around others’ excellence reminds you of the power of persistence.

There’s a lot to be said for not giving up when your courage is waning and encouragement from others is sparse.

Your will to succeed in a realm that is important to you, and the path to that achievement can be strengthened by being immersed in excellence of any type.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

You may think you’re ready for change – until you get up to the starting line and the action is about to start.

And when you do – much like standing at the starting line of an important race – that’s no time to find out you’re unprepared, or that you really don’t want to make the change, at all.

Change isn’t easy, no matter what type of change you’re making (or being asked to make), and no matter who else is involved.

But change usually works out far better if you’re ready for it – and all the twists and turns it can bring.

And it works best, too, if you seek it, rather than if change finds you.

Still better is the change you yearn for.

And best of all is if you’re driven enough to accomplish the change that you can move over, around, or through any barriers that crop up and stand in the way of where you are now, and the success you’re trying to create in the change process.

Change, of course, comes in many forms.

We all know from experience, and from the economic changes of the last few years which have not left many people untouched, in some way, that not all change is change we welcome.

Here are just a few of the types of major change that you may face at some time, and ways that you can adapt to them:

1. Change can be thrust upon us by life circumstances.

A lot of the process of change in these life-thrust-upon-us change circumstances requires acceptance, resilience, adaptability. Sometimes figuring out ways to “make do” for a while is required, too.

These are not experiences that dreams are made of. They are, however, sometimes the stuff that heroic stories are made of.

And like it or not, these experiences can be some of the ones that toughen us up most and make us strong, ready for even greater challenges of other types, later in life.

2. Great change may happen serendipitously.

For example, let’s say you have an interesting opportunity, and decide to take it. An interesting experience occurs, as a result.

You notice that you liked the experience, and decide to repeat the experience or experiment.

An interesting path starts to unfold.

Through these types of gradual change experiences, career interests or passions are sometimes discovered, new skills are developed, opportunities emerge, and rewarding relationships often emerge, too.

3. Change that you yearn for is the change that dreams are often made of.

If these changes are really big ones, they often take hard work and careful planning, and coordination with other people.

These changes are often driven by a very powerful and compelling vision you hold of the outcome you seek.

Whatever the change you face, to the degree you can be, it’s best if you’re ready for the race and challenge of change.

But that’s not possible in every case.

And no matter what happens, or why change occurs, you can’t anticipate and plan for all twists and turns, opportunities, challenges, and differences ahead that will emerge, no matter what type of change has come by.

Change doesn’t have to buckle you to your knees, nor does it have to overwhelm you, even if it is the type you didn’t seek.

Change is a fact of life. Being change-ready and change-responsive – if it’s not yet one of your strengths – is a change you’d best make, and keep.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Success is a wonderful thing.

And it’s 100% guaranteed to bring you happiness, each and every time, right?

Not quite.

Success can bring problems – and problem behaviors – you never anticipated when you were driving so diligently to try to achieve it.

Getting exactly what you thought you wanted can be unsettling.

And it can have an unbalancing effect on people you care about, as well. They’re often swept up, to some degree, in the side effects that may result from your success.

For example, think of someone who earns an Olympic gold medal, or achieves sudden fame or good fortune of any type:

- New opportunities arise.

- Some pressures you felt before are eased. Perhaps, for example, any money concerns you felt before are suddenly erased. And business development may now be far easier.

- And new pressures may suddenly show up. Your time may be far less your own as “opportunities” become “demands.”

And fans, for better or worse, may suddenly surge your way, taking away any semblance of privacy.

- Important relationships may change in some way.

- Behaviors – yours and those of people around you – may change, as well.

Because you may not expect these changes, you may not realize what they are, what’s causing them, or know what to do about them.

These barriers to enjoying great success are described by Gay Hendricks in his book, The Big Leap, Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level.

Hendricks characterizes the Upper Limit Problem. It’s when people are unable to handle great success when it occurs because it feels different and uncomfortable when compared to what they’ve known in the past.

As a result, some people try to find ways to reduce their success, consciously or unconsciously, bringing it back down to a level they’re comfortable handling.

Here are a few of the feelings some people have when they experience great success:

1. Feeling flawed

In the face of great success some people have increased feelings of being imperfect. As a result, they may feel they don’t deserve the success they’re experiencing.

2. Fear of abandonment

People may fear that, with success, important relationships will change in ways they don’t like, and can’t direct or affect in positive ways, so their new-found success feels threatening.

3. Seeing success as a burden

The belief here is that life will become a greater burden with success than it is now. That’s because old, but well-known challenges are exchanged for unknown and potentially bigger problems brought on by fame, fortune, new responsibilities and expectations.

4. Fear of the consequences of “outshining” someone important to you

The essence of this fear is that the newly successful person may be disliked or no longer loved by people who feel they’re being “outshined.”

As Hendricks notes in his book, the way that many people deal with the fear of great success is to reduce it in some way, attempting to rebalance power, happiness, and other aspects of their personal and social environment.

These are just some of the ways people try to reduce their level of happiness so that it’s more familiar and easier to bear:

- Worry
- Criticize and blame others
- Get sick or hurt
- Hide significant feelings and truths
- Break agreements

Now imagine that your entire company, team or family suddenly achieves great success or happiness they’d long sought.

If many people are experiencing unease with their new-found good fortune, all at the same time, and trying to adjust it to levels they’re comfortable with, that may lead to a lot of problem behaviors the group must deal with.

Just knowing that people who are experiencing success may try to bring things down to a more comfortable level doesn’t solve the problem.

But it may make it easier to anticipate and manage, just knowing that the possibility exists.

In the next post, I’ll provide some of Hendricks’ recommendations for increasing your comfort with growing success.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Stymied by a problem you’re trying to solve?

Unsure where to turn for solid advice?

Start with your own.

To do so, create the environment, and make the time so you can fully see and understand the insights and ideas you already have – and new ones that will emerge, in the process.

Make the space and time to quietly write your answers to questions raised in ten stages of problem inquiry, below. They’re from the book, Accidental Genius, Revolutionize Your Thinking Through Private Writing, by Mark Levy.

I’ve found this process valuable in many ways each time I’ve used it. I first learned about it from Kate Purmal in a presentation she did for Women in Consulting, a Bay Area professional organization.

Just let your answers flow, catching them in writing as they emerge. That allows you to work with them in the future, too, as needed.

As you move through this process, don’t edit, correct, or second-guess yourself. Just let the answers flow naturally, whatever they are.

Here are the ten stages of the process:

1. Situation dump

Lay the story out on the page.

What do you know about the situation?

What are the facts?

What are your feelings about it?

What are your fears, your hopes?

Write out everything that’s involved in fully understanding the problem you’re trying to address or solve.

2. What’s working here?

Often when we see problems, we don’t see the good things that are already happening, focused as we are on what
we’re trying to solve, eliminate, or improve.

If we don’t see the good things, sometimes we can chase them away, unwittingly, and don’t really realize what assets we had until they’re gone.

3. How am I hurting myself?

We don’t want to think about what we’re doing to contribute to our problems, but often we’re doing something that makes the situation worse than it might otherwise be.

It’s easy to want to look outside ourselves to try to figure out where the fault belongs without taking the share of the blame that we own.

Own up to your part in the problem you’re trying to address.

4. What does the situation remind me of?

Now take a few minutes to let overall impressions flow through, or over you.

Notice what analogy, metaphor, phrase, image, or perhaps what song emerges that may give you an idea of what’s really going on for you as you try to break through this problem, rise above it, or carry on in spite of the challenges you face.

5. Circle key words and phrases

Quickly review your writing. Circle key words or phrases.

You may see patterns, trends or ideas that had only been hinted at before, which now have become clear by going through this process.

6. What have I missed?

Now, having looked at many aspects of the problem and your alternatives, are there things that occur to you which you had missed before?

7. Indulge the dark side (what is the worst that can happen?)

This part isn’t much fun, but it can be very useful.

Consider what the worst thing is that could happen, from what you know now. And if you really want to push it, creatively, and in terms of your preparation, imagine something much worse than the worst you’re thinking of now.

It probably won’t happen, but if it did, you’d at least have ideas about what you’d do in that or other very challenging circumstances.

8. How good can it get? (best case scenarios)

We’re often so focused on the things that could go wrong that we don’t really look closely at what could go right – and the challenges that success can bring.

Think through best case scenarios for how this issue could be resolved, and what that might mean for you.

9. Alternatives (ask yourself, “What next?”)

Consider what your next steps should be. You don’t know what will happen next, but you do know some possible paths of action you can take, choices you need to make, and next steps that are important for you now.

10. More decent notions

Are there other considerations that are popping up now which you hadn’t considered before?

If so, make note of them now.

Now that you’ve finished all these ten stages of problem, idea, and action inquiry, return to your “regularly scheduled life.” Take the actions you were well-advised – by yourself – to move closer to your goal.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Sometimes you need…well…a good Plan Z in your back pocket.

That’s the plan you think you’ll never need, for the circumstance you’ll never see.

But then…

…there you are, in the midst of conditions you never dreamt could converge, all at the same time, in the same place, in quite this “perfect storm” way.

And you find yourself trying to glue together solutions you know you have to try, even as you fear they may not work.

And in the background, you’re thinking:

1. It would be so much better if you could have foreseen this…
2. …and then prevented it…
3. …and if not, if you had planned what you’d do if this type of circumstance did occur (and therefore, had that great Plan Z in your back pocket).

And so, you’re doing your absolute best to stop the problem and stem the damage.

An “opportunity” to experience “I Need a Good Plan Z” occurred for me recently, thanks to a computer that decided to go on strike quite suddenly, and a backup system that was not quite as tight as I thought it would be in tight turn circumstances.

Learn from my painful experience to prevent your own.

Let me just provide a bit of context:

My family and I had to take a sudden trip back to the Midwest for a family emergency. There was no time for delay.

In the rush to get on the first “red eye” flight, I reworked schedules, packed bags, deposited pets at kennels, advised neighbors of our plans…and got the computer ready to go.

Everything fell into place.

Almost.

The computer was unnervingly slow, and the backup system threw out a warning that I’d better back IT up or face serious data loss.

Troubling as it was, I had no choice but to set the problem aside because we had to get on our way to our nighttime flight. I’d just have to pick it up when we got back home.

When we returned after the intense, unplanned but necessary whirlwind trip, I knew I needed to trouble-shoot the backup system, but had immediate deadlines to finish meeting first.

I hoped to pick up without missing a beat, right where I’d left off.

And the plan worked, for a day.

Then…suddenly…

Pffft.

The computer ground to a halt.

No screen. No familiar sound of the machine springing to action.

Just a barely audible hum, letting me know there was still a minor sign of life under the proverbial hood.

It was soon apparent the computer had a stay – and perhaps a long one – for repairs at some cost in time, money, and data lost.

It turned out to be more than a week without my computer, hoping for the best when it returned.

Here are a few of the lessons I learned as I tried to make the best of a bad and unexpected situation:

1. First, don’t panic.

Consider if there really IS a problem, or if, instead, someone or something just needs a little time off to rest, recharge, recuperate.

2. What’s the worst that can happen? Be ready for that.

Figure out how you’ll handle the worst circumstance that, on first pass, you think could happen.

3. Now consider what could happen that’s even worse, and figure out how you’d handle that.

Don’t stay in that planning process for long (you may scare yourself if you do).

Spend just enough time that you know how you would respond, if it did.

4. Now, consider what your ideal solution is in the circumstances you anticipate, more than what you fear.

In my situation, I had irreplaceable family photos I’d downloaded to my computer and erased from my camera, but hadn’t had time to back up before the computer crashed.

My ideal solution, in that circumstance, was different from what it would have been if I’d just had a few draft emails I could have let go if all computer contents were lost.

5. Find out how bad the situation really is.

Get the facts.

Until then, you just don’t know what you’re dealing with. The circumstance may be better, or it may be worse than you expect.

6. Find out what your alternatives really are.

Choose the solution that most closely matches your priorities and “ideal” solution for the difficult circumstances you’re in, whatever they are.

7. Get moving and get a solution in place.

Delays, avoidance and head-in-the-sand moves won’t save the day – or your data, or whatever else it is that you’re trying to retrieve, retain or improve.

8. Expectations of a good outcome probably have to change.

An “okay” solution before this happened may look like a GREAT solution now, once your alternatives are reduced, along with the resources that are already reduced by having to fix something you had no idea was broken, at all.

9. In the process of working out a workaround, you may find that some changes or innovations you had to make, in the moment, are solutions you want to keep far beyond this experience.

You never know.

A great invention, innovation, or process improvement could arise because of the difficulty this perfect storm has brought.

Get through this experience as well as you can.

Then take a look at the good things this experience has wrought, if there are some. You’ll find, ultimately, that there surely are, and perhaps more than you thought.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Are you searching for a great idea, a new opportunity, or a project in which you can thrive, driving it to complete success?

Use the Seven C’s, seven stages that will take you from earliest idea to  successful final project, and celebration, as well.

It’s common for people and teams to skip one or more of these important steps.

And that can seriously affect the final outcome of the project, often in undesirable ways.

I’ll cover each of the following seven stages in more detail in future blog posts:

1. Care
Start your idea search by considering what you care about, a lot.

You know from your own experience that success is far more likely if you’re working for people you care about, on things you care about, as well.

2. Commit
Caring and commitment are very different things.

Commitment means you’re choosing to invest your time, attention, energy and, often, your money, as well, to getting this job done – and not invest it in doing something else that’s more interesting.

3. Clear
There may be things you need to clear out of the way in order for this project to get your full attention.

Think about what, specifically, needs to change to make way for this project. Figure out how you’ll get that done as quickly and well as possible.

4. Connect
Often other people are involved in large or significant projects.

Who needs to be involved in this one?

Do you know them already, or do you need to reach them through others?

Often some groundwork needs to be done to create the connections you need for full success.

5. Create
Finally you get to the actual creation stage.

Much of the work up to this point involves laying the groundwork for success.

What steps are involved in creating a sample of the product, or a pilot program to test the concept?

How can you test the idea with a sample of customers who are likely to buy the final product or service?

What is the process you will follow – or teach others to – in order to produce this product or service easily, consistently?

6. Complete
There comes a time when a product or service is ready to be offered for sale to customers, or the project needs to be finished.

And yet…

Sometimes finishing is the toughest step.

Some people try to wrap things up too quickly, and miss some key details that make all the difference, in the end.

Others hang on to a project far too long, and seem to almost refuse to bring the project to an end.

This is costly, and you may very well miss other opportunities and sales, in the process.

7. Celebrate
Do you take the time to fully notice your achievements as they occur?

It’s easy to be so focused on what isn’t complete, or what hasn’t been done yet, that you miss success as it unfolds, bit by bit.

Notice and acknowledge what’s going well in order to grow success even more in the future.

Try the Seven C’s the next time you’re seeking project success, particularly when the challenge is new, and the path ahead is unfamiliar.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Imagine you’re working hard, and making steady progress toward a major goal.

The many amazing events of the Winter Olympics provide great examples of this.

Now imagine that you’re finding this path is turning out to be a much bigger challenge than you expected.

And then, imagine that something throws you off-course.

Perhaps in the example of the Olympics, a competitor does much better than you expected.

Or your own qualifying time for an event put you in first place – and you typically perform better farther back in the pack, when you’re chasing the leader.

And in the process of the surprise you’ve experienced, your confidence and the rock-solid assurance you felt that you’d be successful…suddenly…drains away or even dissolves.

Confidence has its own ebbs and flows as you make your way over, around, and through the barriers that crop up sometimes on the way to reaching a major goal.

Confidence is partly the result of believing in oneself, partly a matter of preparation and persistence, but largely, it’s earned as a result of one’s interim successes on the way to that big goal.

Here are a few things you can do to increase the chances of success, and to create the steady flow of confidence you need to reach your ultimate goal.

1. “Pre-experience” success

Imagine it in detail. What do you think success will be like when you reach it?

And what will it be like, all along the way to your goal?

For example, what do you think you’ll see?

What will you hear?

What do you imagine you’ll feel?

2. Activate and energize

Pay close attention to what happens, as compared to what you think will.

Update your vision, as you go.

Repeat your process of “pre-experiencing” success, and do so regularly.

3. Learn from others who have gone before you

Talk to others who have traveled this path, achieved this goal, or made this change, too.

Their experiences may be far different from your own, but your research can help you anticipate and be prepared for what might happen, both the highs and the lows of the experience.

4. Take action

Get started.

Keep moving.

Actively monitor, manage and adjust your progress, priorities, enthusiasm, energy and reserves as you go.

5. Evaluate

Be an active learner.

When things are going well, notice why that’s happening.

And when circumstances need to improve in order to make your way through a challenging time, notice that, too. And notice why it’s happening.

6. Keep a journal

Keep a learning journal that helps you understand and manage the experience.

It also becomes a great resource when you want to pursue your next major goal.

For example, record your goals, assumptions and plans when you started.

Note, also, what actions you took, what adjustments you made, and the results you achieved, all along the way.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Are you on your way to meeting your most important resolutions or goals this year?

Or are you already off-track, or being held back in some way?

If you’re in the second group you’re far from alone.

Here are a few problems you may be facing, and things you can do to get back on track again:

Too many things to do?

To get to a better future, first you have to take care of current circumstances.

When you look at that to-do list, what’s the one thing you need to do before anything else can get done?

For now…just one.

And if it’s not easy to figure out what that one thing is, imagine looking back on this time a few months from now.

Imagine that everything worked out perfectly.

What did you do, where did you begin or what did you complete that took care of now and allowed you to move on to what’s next?

Success just seems to far away to see it…or believe it?

Break your big goal down into mini-milestones. (My dad used to describe these as “ends in view”).

Choose that first small milestone.

Work toward that.

Finish it.

And celebrate in an appropriate way.

Then take on the next small milestone or goal.

Create a string of successes along the way to the big finish, your ultimate goal.

Don’t worry about the past.

Don’t worry about the future.

Take care of now, and do it as well as you can.

Reaching your goal is too hard, now that you look at it more closely?

Step back for a second.

Is it really so hard? Or is it that parts of the path ahead are just (just!) unknown, at this point?

Intimidating or invigorating? How you experience a challenge depends on your perspective.

And if you are intimidated right now, is there training you can take, learning by experimenting that you can do, or someone you can talk with you has the experience that you don’t?

Perhaps there’s an advisor you can hire, or a colleague who’s mastered this challenge from whom you can learn before you go farther.

Reaching your goal is too easy…and you set your sights too low?

Maybe you’re secretly (or not so secretly) bored.

That causes its own problems, too. You never quite get organized, never quite have the “oomph” to get over even minor milestones when your energy and enthusiasm is low.

But before you draw this conclusion, look a little deeper.

Sometimes boredom masks a lack of understanding about what customers, colleagues or managers want you to deliver.

Look deeper before you declare boredom.

There may be important things you’re not looking for or seeing yet.

The truth is that you don’t really want this job?

There’s a lot of that going around, if you believe recent statistics.

One study showed that, of course, in an economy such as the one we’re still working through, people are thankful to have a job.

But at the same time, fewer than half of American workers are happy in the jobs they have.

And that includes executives and managers leading organizations.

If the unhappy camp includes you, and you’re one of many who plan to change jobs when the economy improves, what can you do now – where you are, at this time – to make yourself a more engaging hire when you apply for the next one?

How can you do a better job (yes, at this job you don’t like) for your customers?

For example:

- How can you make the work easier to do?

- How can you improve communications with people you work with and for?

- What do you control? (It’s probably more than you think, and less than you wish). Do what you can to improve that.

This is not a complete list of what might be holding you back, and what you can do if you’re now off track.

You will get solid footing soon.

If you found this post valuable, please share it with friends and colleagues who may find it useful, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

January.

It’s the month when, full of the possibilities of a fresh new year, we assert, “This year things are going to be DIFFERENT.”

And by February 1, many of us are back to our old habits again.

Why IS that?

What prevents us – well, many of us and many companies, as well – from making substantial, meaningful, sustainable change?

It’s because the pull of the old stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves or our organizations, is astonishingly strong.

We need to break free of the power of their orbit.

Unwittingly, unconsciously, many of these stories box us in, tie us up, hold us back.

They make us blind to many possibilities, and much of our potential and our power.

The old stories limit:

- Who we are

- What we’re capable of, based on a variety of stereotypes we may be telling ourselves, about ourselves

- Our chances for success, for in many ways we fall prey to what they “predict” is likely to happen next

Think of it this way: if someone were looking at a movie of your life, or the life of your company, would they be watching a:

- Comedy?
- Drama?
- Action/adventure tale?
- Or (hopefully not) a horror story?
- Documentary, perhaps?

And then, consider:

- What’s the plot?

- Who are the main players?

- What’s your role in the plot?

- What’s likely to happen next, if you continue to play out this story and this role?

Now, of course, the audience for any movie wants surprise and high drama in the plot…that’s what keeps them in their seats.

But if you’re the person living that drama-filled life…well, you get the point…you want to take the drama out, wherever you can.

It will bring you far greater results which is much more fun, in the end, than the highs and lows of a drama-filled ride can ever be.

For example, if you viewed your life as a comedy, your secret wish might be to entertain those around you.

The primary “scenes” in that case might focus on pratfalls, near-misses and other assorted things that go wrong…except for the entertainment value they provide your friends.

However, if you view your life as an “overcoming all odds” story, then the plot line may focus attention on the odds stacked against you, followed by the many ways you did not fall victim to being beaten down by life, discouraged, depleted or otherwise kept from doing the most you could with the resources and talents you have.

To change, we have to see our stories in order to be able to move to a more positive path.

It is not easy to do.

But it’s definitely worth the effort it takes.

Make your story a good one, and one you want to live…not just the one you inherited, or were “assigned” by someone in your past.

In future posts I’ll give you steps you can follow to see your story more clearly. I’ll also share ideas you can use to create a better story, leading to a more satisfying path and far better results along the way.

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