4 Keys to the New Year Greatness You Deserve

4 Keys to the New Year Greatness You Deserve

The clock struck midnight and the calendar rolled forward into a new year.

I would argue we also rolled into a new decade, but the purist like to say it’s another year away before the next decade starts. Since I like to think of a decade as 10 years and even numbers are easier for me to work with, I am saying today begins a new decade.

Are you with me?

20 years ago, I partied like it is 1999 (because it was), but last night I partied like I was ninety-nine. Twenty years has taken a lot of the party out of me. What about you?

As we begin this New Year called 2020, I want to share some thoughts with you on how this can be your best year ever as you lead yourself and others and set you up for your best decade ever.

I will be taking my own advice here as well and running this journey with you along the way. Our journeys will be different, the actions you take won’t be the same as mine, but the process will be similar. 

4 things you must have to get going: 

1. New vision -- Now I know it is so cliché to say we have 2020 vision, or hindsight is 2020. But as you begin this day and this new year, set out with 2020 vision. 2020 vision is perfection in our sight. We don’t need assistance from glasses or contacts, we can see perfectly with our naked eye. 2020 vision as it relates to our future means we can see perfectly with our “mind’s eye.”

What do you see in your future? Spend some time clarifying your vision of what it is you want to BE, DO and HAVE over the next 12-months. Gain pristine clarity of the future you. Do not step into the rest of today, tomorrow or this month without writing down the new you as a leader of self and others. 

Over 20 years ago I had one of my employees challenge me on my leadership. I was expecting her to do something that I was not modeling myself as her leader. Luckily for me, she was brave enough to challenge me and I was humble enough to listen. This was a moment of clarity for me as a leader and caused me to shift my vision for leadership growth in myself, so I could be the leader others wanted to follow and not a leader others wanted to throw under the bus.

I created a new vision for myself then and do it with even more clarity today. 

2. New mindset – The same thinking that carried you to this new year will not carry you to this new vision. If you create a new vision for yourself, it should require you to change. This new vision should require you to stretch and become something different than you are today.

Many leaders I work with do not really grasp this concept. We are programmed to believe if what we are doing isn’t broke, then don’t break it or change it. But, in most cases we all need a shift in mindset to get to that next level. Maybe you have been successful; but will the habits you have today in all areas of your life help or hinder you from being all you want and should be? Will those habits and your current thinking carry you to this new vision you have created?

If there is anything holding you back today, it will most certainly be a deal stopper in the future if you do not work on a new mindset to remove obstacles, limiting beliefs and behaviors.

I can say without a doubt mindset and new thinking is the number one essential skill you and I must make a priority in 2020 if we want this to be our best year ever. 

3. New action – The secret to your success is found in your daily agenda. I learned this many years ago from a mentor named John Maxwell. If you are like me, you can see a new vision and you can think a little differently about what you must do to make it happen, but old habits get in the way.

Maybe you perform well for 1 or 2 or 3 days on this new vision, but then life happens and all of the sudden you feel pressure, so you go back to what you know and begin to do the same old things you have always done because it is the easiest path to no resistance.

Aristotle said, “doing the same thing and expecting different results is insanity.”

Are you insane? Most of us do not want to admit we are insane, but I find myself stuck doing the same thing and “hoping” for different results. So, I suffer with at least temporary insanity.

One of the tools I designed to help me take new action every day is my DAILY COMPASS tool. I know for me if I don’t have a daily plan, then I will find myself doing the same actions day in and day out and not really making progress on the new vision I created.

This tool is designed to help you become a high-achiever and daily action taker on NEW ACTION and not the same old things day in and day out.

Grab a copy of the tool for no cost at DAILY COMPASS  

4. New finish – One of the first books I ever read about personal growth was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of those habits is to “begin with the end in mind.”

What is the end you want to create? When the clock strikes midnight again to finish another year what will you hope to have accomplished? How will your new vision be realized? Who will you have impacted in a positive way?

Nothing is finished, and nothing is accomplished fully. Each year we are going to want more and have a desire to live out a fuller expression of the design our creator had for us when He began with the end in mind for our lives.

You can’t get a new start in your life, but you can create a new finish if you start now with a new vision, a new mindset and new actions that lead you to the greatest year ever!!

Get clear on the new vision, create the new mindset it will take to succeed and take massive new action each day to have this new finish you deserve.

If we can help let us know.

Make it a great year!