Becoming the best version of yourself
Resolutions to exercise more and drink less are great — why not strive for one you really deserve?
As the first month of 2019 nears an end and those New Years resolutions start to fade into a distant memory (remember the fabulous days where we all lost track of time and had no idea what day of the week it was)? Rather than dismiss those as rash why not focus on a larger more aspirational goal for the year and for your life? In an unusually personal post, here is mine.
I swear this goal for the year was not inspired by “the” Gillette advert — but it was coincidentally timed and the resulting debate certainly helped clarify my goal as described below. My true inspiration is below as a footnote.
Aren’t I awesome already?
For some people self reflection is really easy and for others it’s really hard. For me it depends on what’s going on as to whether I reflect on my own style and behaviour — and more importantly whether I am living up to my own potential.
Now, before you get on your high horse and dismiss this as a self help / enlightenment / whatever-the-latest-fad-is kind of blog — it’s not.
Being the best version of yourself is hard to achieve in every aspect of your life, don’t you deserve to live up to our own potential and to contribute your best selves to everything you do? don’t your families deserve the best possible you everyday? your employers too? Afterall we only have one life.
Even if you think you are awesome I challenge you to take a 2nd look, I certainly have and realised there is real room for improvement so here is what I am changing first.
Being Present
As a person with many “jobs” and responsibilities my mind is busy all the time and I really lack good techniques to quiet it down. This means I am often distracted during conversations — with my family, with my team, with strangers — which is really a bit shite and isn’t doing justice to anyone. Being present to me means I will be:
- in the moment I am in
- listen with intent
- focus on the person / people I am with — not my next problem to solve
Doing what I say I am going to do
Last year I had that shitty virus then months of post viral fatigue so I dropped the ball all over the place and was racked with guilt at who I let down. It highlighted however I tend to say yes without considering my capacity — or whether I am the best person to take the specific thing on. How I plan to change this is:
- have a plan so I know what capacity I have
- pause, take a breath and think before I say yes
- talk to my network more about their interests and capacity so I can share
To be clear this doesn’t mean I plan to majorly change my ability to help others with their success and I will continue to feel guilty when I drop the ball or make a mistake — guilt helps me be the best version of myself in some perverse way.
Be a little bit more selfish
Being able to take care of others, to take on ambitious projects (like transforming our economy), to best support the companies I own shares in become as successful as they can possibly be, help my team realise their goals— weirdly means I need to be a little bit more selfish to keep me well and strong both physically and mentally. This one will be hard so intend to start with:
- my exercise time is my exercise time <fullstop>
- allocate more thinking and personal development time
- reaching compromises that have a positive outcome for me as well (instead of acquiescing)
Pulling it all together
If my improvements don’t resonate with you there are hundreds of posts out there with tips on being the best person you can be. I read this one before realising, for me, this is about me not following someone else's formula.
Recently I have interviewed quite a few candidates for different organisations I am a director of. One thing that struck me was the number of candidates who didn’t really know who they are, didn’t have clarity of aspirations or goals, didn’t know what success means to them. This didn’t factor into my decision making criteria it just surprised me — and made me realise part of being the best version of yourself means knowing who you want to be! which sounds like another blog. Vic
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. Judy Garland
Footnote
This post was inspired by a team building event I attended before the Christmas break. I spent my last morning of work in 2018 in an empowering, invigorating and energising workshop with our fabulous friends at Nicholson Consulting (thank you Todd and Kylie for including me in your team event). The topic was “Becoming the Best Version of Yourself” and facilitated by UK based Flying Cloud founder Leandra Ashton. The session focused on personal presence and self awareness which was invaluable. But as I got ready that morning my brain was full of the massive to do list in the run up to Christmas, to be fair I thought I would go along, see if I learn anything and then get back to work pronto — in reality I found the session was so interactive it didn’t allow me to think about anything else and forced me to be present! little did I know this would have such a profound impact on me and consume my thoughts over the break.
*The Dilbert image is the copyright of Dilbert.com (and posted with thanks).
“We live in a great country so helping every New Zealander reach their potential in life is something we can all aspire to achieve”. You can follow me on LinkedIN or on Twitter and read my context here.
This post is my personal opinion so while I wear many hats it doesn’t necessarily reflect the views and positions of the various organisations I represent. Vic