Back in the day when I was a hotshot CEO, January staff meetings were always a blast. My partner and I would stage electrifying (PowerPoint) presentations designed to enlighten and inspire our staff to start the New Year with an explosion of brash, cocky confidence. It was a chance to gather everyone together and sell our ideas about where we’re headed, grapple with ways to get there, and get pumped about the coming adventures that would ultimately lead us to the Promise Land. Did it work? Sometimes yes, other times not so much. Does it matter? Yes.
The beginning of the year always feels exhilarating. That adrenaline-charged, quivering feeling that bubbles up from the deepest part of you, every January, that’s filled with anticipation, loaded with righteous certainty and anxious with impatience. Can you feel it? That excitement and enthusiasm for a future that could be—that will be? An inner confidence that insists, “this year is different, this time it’s going to happen!” It’s a propelling energy that provokes so much confidence and commitment that it really does have the power to catapult any project into the stratosphere.
BUT? No buts. Go with it! Jump on the back of that rocket and ride it as deep in the New Year as you can. Not like sappy, idealistic, “positive thinking,” more like an intelligent way of being, like this is how it’s suppose to be, all the time!