Reflection and retrospection are so helpful around this time of year.
I’ve never been one to say that you need to wait for some big, arbitrary calendar milestone to make a change in your life—but I do feel like the ones that exist offer convenient pre-built opportunities.
So, whether you already have retrospection and reflection built into your personal operating system or not, consider taking some extra time this week to examine your goals, expectations, and achievements.
Sharpen the axe.
Refine your system.
Get more clear on why you do what you do.
You’ll move faster and do less work if you have a sharp axe.
Seems like a no-brainer, but we all need this reminder sometimes.
There’s this “well-intentioned, bad advice” that we’ve been given that we just need to work harder and we’ll succeed. This message leaves out critical parts of success like opportunity and process improvement.
As Seth Godin says in his legendary podcast “Startup School:”
Entrepreneurs by their nature are willful, strong willed, bull headed, and committed. If we’re not, we fail. But sometimes we get hung up on getting confused between sticking with the right path and sticking with the wrong path.
The person who insists on pushing their independent bookstore—“Independent bookstore! Independent bookstore!”—in the face of what’s happening in the world isn’t a persistent entrepreneur. They’re a fool.
They say, “I got to figure out how to sell eBooks.” No, you’re never going to be able to sell eBooks in your independent bookstore. Don’t try. There’s a lot of things you can do in your independent bookstore, but falling in love with the archetype or the vision you have in your head is not the way to do it.
Seth Godin
The start of this new year is a clear, obvious, convenient opportunity for you to examine yourself, audit your methods, and sharpen your axe.
I can’t wait to see what you do next.