Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again

A new year always brings with it a sense of reflection on the year gone past as well as a need to review and define goals for 2019.
We’ve all heard Albert Einstein’s famous line: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” 

Some good questions to answer are:
“What goals/milestones did you achieve in 2018?”
“What difference has this made to you and your business?”
“What didn’t you achieve that you intended to…?”
“Why not…?”
“Ask yourself what is holding you back from living to the fullest?”
Make a list of these things…things or situations in your life that you are tolerating, that you are not happy with and that will eventually drain you.
“What do you want MORE of in your life?”
It may be more family time, more money, more freedom, more holidays…make a list of these.
“What do you want LESS of?”
It may be less strife, stress, late nights in the office, etc. …make a list

With the above in mind, following the advice of Stephen Covey in his acclaimed book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a reminder of the first three habits that refer to changing a life of dependence to independence.

Habit 1: Be proactive
Essentially taking full ownership and responsibility for one’s life and choices. To become proactive, one should take initiative, choose proactive language and actions and focus on one’s circle of influence. Circle of influence meaning to focus and spend energy on those things one can change e.g. mindset, planning, people one associate with, etc. and less time and energy on the ‘outside noise’, things one can not really change or impact but just needs to be acknowledged e.g. political landscape, economy, etc.

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind
This is the habit of personal leadership. Having a clear vision on one’s end game…where are you ‘going’ with all of this…your life, your relationships, your business, etc. This is important as everything in our life first happens in our mind and then in reality…clearly define the end goal and then reverse engineer what needs to happen in order to make the end goal a reality.

At ActionCOACH we refer to the importance of having a vision (personal first and then a vision for your business), then define some smart goals towards the vision. The next step will be to develop a plan as to the ‘how to’ achieve these goals and then the numerous smaller steps of action and execution in every plan.

Habit 3: Put first things first
With a clear vision and end in mind, it is much easier to identify and focus on certain priorities in terms of time and focus. This habit is all about self mastery, discipline and willpower to implement activities and steps to turn your goals into reality. Covey shares the time management matrix, differentiate between what is urgent vs important keeping goals and the end game in mind.

Coming back to this time of the year, keeping the above habits one to three in mind will help hugely to think about this year, plan ahead for the year to come and define some really smart goals for your life and business. And then as with almost all things in life, it does work to have an accountability partner…someone that one can discuss your dream and goals with as well as keeping us accountable to ‘get the job done’!

As a business coach, this forms a big part of my coaching relationship with all my coaching clients. Regularly ‘taking stock’ as to where are we now, where do we want to go and what will be the best way to get there…!