“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
— A.A. Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh
I love April Fool’s Day because it’s a great opportunity to begin again. It’s a great time to reignite your resolutions and reimagine your life. If you’ve fallen off your wagon a bit — I know I have — you still have 9 months remaining — enough time to birth the ‘baby’ you want to create this year!
Happy April Fool’s Day — How can you get re-started?
Several weeks ago, I wrote a post about setting goals and resolutions. I suggested you set up quarterly plans, not year long plans. You can go back and read the post here.
In that post I included a worksheet, but I’m not wed to any particular format. I just want you to find the planning mechanism that works for you. If you set up your own method — congratulations! I’m all for customizing formats that work for you.
Whatever mechanism you used, it’s time to pull out your Q1 plan and review.
I don’t think we life strategists and coaches spend enough time asking our clients to comprehensively review. We’re often too ready to jump to the next suggestion without pausing to assess the behaviors that surround the current situation.
Sometimes, there’s real gold if we can pause and tease out what behaviors and activities really worked from those behaviors and activities that were less successful. Getting a handle on some of the nuances, can help clients move forward more quickly.
If you’re interested, here’s a Worksheet to help you Review Q1 and Plan Q2
Plus, below a few questions to consider as you plan more progress for yourself in Q2:
- What worked in Q1?
- What didn’t?
- Why didn’t it work? Why did it work?
- Do you need to revise your 2018 vision/plan/mission?
- What’s different about your plans and initiatives in Q2?
- If you revise and set a new plan for Q2, what makes you think it will work better?
- Are you focused on the right things? Do you need to reprioritize?
- Do you know where your days go?
- How can you do more of what’s working?
These are critical questions that are often difficult for us to answer honestly. Not because we’re lying, but because human nature being what it is — we don’t always see ourselves and our behaviors clearly.
Here’s where having a mentor, mastermind or coach can help enormously.
If you have someone in your circle you trust and who you know has your back, consider buying them a coffee or beer and ask them these questions. Then compare your answers to their answers and see where there are similarities and differences. You might get some aha insights that help you refine your vision and redirect your energy for faster results.
If you do conduct a review, here’s a tip: Try to end the conversation by focusing on what’s been working. When I work with clients, we often spend time exploring and expanding ways to do more of ‘that’!
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Now, here’s a crazy question to consider —
What if you re-imagined one of your ‘good’ habits?
Most of us who are into self-development are firmly focused on developing habits. We believe that if we have better habits we’ll see more progress toward our goals and be more successful.
I don’t disagree with the basics of this notion.
But what if — dropping one of your ‘good’ habits — perhaps only temporarily — would move you forward faster?
For example, I generally hit the exercise room as soon as I wake up and spend up to 90 minutes some days doing a routine. I’ve been anchored to that habit for years. Few would argue against this good habit.
But what if — while I’m working on a writing project, I changed it up a little bit? I exercised less or in the afternoon or later in the morning after I got 2 hours of writing done? How would that improve my life?
Often we get so stuck in our habits and routines, we don’t consider changing them up. We’re stuck in “the way we do things.”
Touch base with yourself and see what it feels like to change up a ‘good’ habit. It might be useful. You can always go back to ‘the way you were!’
