This is YOUR Easy Button
We all can get a good laugh out of the Staples commercial where someone is at work and in a bind. They see that big red gem of a button and with one simple press their problem is solved! While this is not real life (maybe they should write a disclaimer on that one), you do have something in your back pocket to pull out in times of need. That is your personal reset button.
The trend for New Year’s resolutions in the blogosphere is to select a word for your year. This word is to be a representation of how you will choose to live your life each day in the coming year. While I typically shy away from anything “resolution” related in January, there was a word that kept emerging from conversations with friends and personal meditation. Reset.
I want this to be my personal word of 2017. I want this to be everyone’s word for 2017! The power to reset is not only tied to major milestones such as a birthday, job promotion or even a job loss. We can choose to reset at any time and an infinite number of times.
Too many years have gone by where my annual review has come up and I wondered where my motivation literally nosedived from where it was at the beginning of the year. In hindsight, all I really needed to do was take a deep breath (maybe a few) and simply reset. When I find I’ve taken a few steps forward, only to experience a setback, it’s ok to just reset. Your starting point today is different than it was even on January 1. You are subconsciously making progress through the challenges you meet each day. However, these challenges tend to bog us down. They wear us out both emotionally and physically. They drive us to cruise on autopilot through life because it’s far easier to dive deeper into the daily routine than to continuously break patterns for a change that will not bring instant gratification.
How to reset? It’s not as complicated or difficult as one may think.
Get out of your head. Get out of your cube, get up from the couch, take a different route home.. Go somewhere that you do not venture to in your daily routine. A new environment will give your mind a fresh perspective and allow you to focus on yourself, other than the emails or crying kids.
Get out of your head- again. I used to be a self-help book addict. I’d read everything I could get my hands on for anything remotely related to self-improvement. Each book I read had the same introduction, which was to actually do the exercises that were outlined in the chapters. They advised that simply thinking through them wasn’t enough and you had to write it all down. Like a lot of people looking for advice, I took the parts that were convenient for me and ignored others such as writing down and journaling through exercises. Well, that’s probably why I kept reading this subject matter- I wasn’t finding the answer. Yet, I wasn’t finding the answer because I wasn’t doing the work! Simply thinking through the exercises is not enough. Get these ideas and thoughts and struggles out of your head and onto some paper! Each time you break out that journal, read back on a few entries prior, you’d be surprised what patterns pop up.
Get out of your head — three times is a charm! Stop all negative self-talk and remove yourself from others who bring you down. The purpose of resetting is to start anew. That’s not to say to completely forget the mistakes you’ve made, but change the way you think of them. These are learning opportunities and character-building events that only will fuel your drive to power on. Think of all the times you have felt that you’ve needed a reset before. You’ve overcome those rough patches and found the strength to power on. Keep powering on, keep rowing your boat.
We all have annual reviews. We all have gone through some self-reflection on the goals we set the prior year only to realized we “forgot” a few of them. By resetting and adjusting our goals, we will meet that sales number, we will find the right employees to hire and see the reward in making the effort to reset. So go ahead, push the button.