Your Big Thought has been parked in the back of your brain this past year. It is nipping at the heels of your conscience.
Your Big Thought inserted itself into every business decision you made this year. You may not have articulated your Thought to others. Yet you heard your Big Thought, loud and clear, inside your own head.
Your Big Thought has to do with whether you are in the right career. Whether you require more certification (or not) in order to gain credibility with your colleagues and clients. Whether you can continue to tolerate the rote actions, duties and lack of creativity in your current position.
Your Thought has to do with whether you really believe what you have learned in all those training courses that are thrown at you every year. You are overwhelmed by training tactics that seem to have very little purpose and even less strategy behind them.
Does anyone have any common sense?
You want to do your own thinking, instead of being jerked around by a company culture that appears to have schizophrenic priorities from one quarter to the next. There is no innovation in that tack.
Your Big Thought has to do with a nagging feeling that you were put here to do something more purposeful than following others. You realize that you have become far too comfortable in your current role. You remain hesitant about assuming the type of risk and responsibility that are required to lead others instead being led by others.
There is no future in that tack.
Your Big Thought continues to nip at your brain. It has to do with how you, yourself, have been holding You back for so long.
You continue to reinforce your habit of doubting yourself. You talk yourself into growing a thin veneer of self-confidence easily shattered by sales that fail to close, projects which become problematic, output that is error-laden, promotions that fail to come through and workplace politics that are far from inspiring.
There’s no forward momentum in a tack that dwells in the past. You know that.
Your Big Thought tells you to look forward, through your windshield. Stop gazing into the rear-view mirror of doubt.
Your Big Thought tells you that each New Year is not comprised of resolutions to do what you did in the past, with better results. You have been there before, in the past. Let that type of thinking stay there, in the past.
No more resolutions, please. These are not Big Thoughts. Understand the difference.
Have Resolve instead of Resolutions. Resolve is a verb. Verbs require action. Resolutions are nouns. Resolutions are just another static item to cross off your To-Do list.
There’s no forward momentum in resolutions.
Resolve has to do with having the fortitude, courage, confidence and a strong sense of commitment to make a decision, to solve a problem, that you were not able to take action on in the past.
Make that decision. Take action. And continue to take action, moving forward.
You cannot move yourself forward if you are looking backward over your shoulder. You will stumble and fall. Again.
Hold on to that Thought.
When your Big Thoughts have a forward trajectory there is no room to wallow in a habit of business mea culpas. There only is room for personal and professional growth and development.
Have resolve. Lead yourself forward, first. Then you will liberate yourself to lead others.
Hold on to your Big Thought. Let’s carry it to fruition in the New Year. Together, as always.
Babette N. Ten Haken builds innovative, productive and profitable teams focused on excellence in the execution of strategy. Her Playbook on collaboration hacks, including tools, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Top Sales World named her one of the Top 50 Sales and Marketing Bloggers and Thought Leaders, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
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