2010 is history. Today starts the new decade and also marks the date we all start our resolutions … the changes we want to make to improve our lives, our loves, our vocations, and our businesses. It marks the mindset of change. BUT, if you’re like me, I start like a racehorse out of the gate — my enthusiasm is high, my expectations of success are unstoppable, but something happens along the way, and a few weeks or months later, I’m back to where I was. Back to the same old same old. Why is that? Why don’t we follow through with these wonderful, life altering changes, even when we know they are for our best?
I think the biggest impediment to change is to think of it as an outcome and not a process. We want what the change brings us — greater financial prosperity, smaller waistlines, greater knowledge, but when faced with the challenges of actually getting there, the process itself stops us in our tracks.
Let’s face it — change is HARD! And real change takes work, commitment, and will power (or in the case of weight loss – “won’t” power). On a larger scale, why is it that so many businesses fail in their efforts to change? Probably because for the most part, we overlay new processes, rules, direction, vision over the top of the old. If the old is still there lurking underneath, then when the going gets tough, we just lift up the layer and crawl under to what’s comfortable and safe. We need to view change as a process, a mindset, a lifestyle change, or for businesses, a new, improved plan to get us where we want to be. There has to be no turning back to the old; no opportunity to go back to the status quo or business as usual.
If nothing else, 2010 taught us that change happens and can happen quickly; 2008 and 2009 shows the impact of greed — the ripple effect of a few on the many. Our economy has so many interdependencies that one change can cascade throughout the entire world. We are interdependent – not made to function in isolation. Our success depends on the success of other individuals and other businesses, and they depend on us. If we think that what we do and what we change doesn’t matter, ask anyone who was duped by a Ponzi scheme, or someone who was lulled into buying a home by low interest rates and the promise of skyrocketing home values. Ask someone who has lost their job, their home, their car, their self respect. Then tell me that we don’t depend on others.
So where does that bring us? Let’s look at 2011 as the year to change from the inside, to view our work and our lives through new eyes. Eyes that were made stronger and wiser though adversity. Eyes that now have learned that we can get along with less, and still be successful. Eyes that look to curb waste and maximize talent. We have a tremendous opportunity ahead of us, underpinned by the “Great Disruption.” I would hate to think that we have gone through and are still experiencing the impact of the last couple of difficult years without searching for the positives and using them to our advantage.
May 2011 be a time of repurposing our thinking, and retooling our outlook. With that mindset, it will be a great year.
