The holidays are upon us. Cue readying for the season’s (at times, frenetic) festivities with shopping, cooking, decorating, etc.
Yet.
The holidays are underleveraged as a highly influential time to create change in our lives, especially as we look to the new year ahead.
We have only mere weeks left in 2019. But, have you considered that there are only mere weeks left in THIS DECADE? 2020 will usher in, not only a fresh start to a new year, along with the advent of a new era.
As we transition from “the teens” to “the twenties”, taking charge of our mental, emotional, and physical health is a must! During the holidays, take the time to step back and invest in your future success by focusing on sustainability, being your own hero, and healing.
Success is Sustainability
During the holidays, many people receive the greatest number of paid and unpaid days off work, making this time opportune to capitalize on celebrating the season, AND investing in our next season of success!
Success is a process, a journey, that hinges both on continued personal growth and sustained development over time.
Ask yourself, what choices do you need to make that will continue to foster your success 1, 5, and 10 years from now?
In order to create the sustainability to support your success, consider:
No is a full sentence
I recently read a post by Girls Building Empires, “Decide what kind of life you actually want. Then say No to everything that isn’t that.” Truly, this is a challenge for all of us.
The question is: What are you willing to give up for the life you say you want? A lackluster relationship? Faulty beliefs? Fear of failure?
When everything is a priority, nothing is.
When we fail to plan, we plan to fail.
When we care enough about ourselves, our capabilities, our lives, and bringing forth the best in ourselves, we invest in planning for our future.
Get in the habit of asking yourself, “Does this support the life I am trying to create?” Irisa Yardenah
We live in a society where it’s easy to believe that in order to be successful, we need to do more.
In fact, sustainability for success lies in doing less. In being willing to give up the things that take time away from the life, experiences, and achievements we MOST desire.
Leaving, divesting, letting go, and saying no isn’t an act of disloyalty. It is an act of radical self-love.
Let that sink in.
Invest in the capabilities that will cultivate tomorrow’s sustainability for success. How? The late Stephen Covey instructed to put the big rocks in first. Imagine you have a glass jar and next to the jar you have a few big rocks, smaller rocks, pebbles, sand, and water. This jar is your life, your capacity. If you begin to fill your jar with the smaller, less meaningful items, you may not have room for the big rocks, the most important priorities. However, if you start with the big rocks, the most important priorities, they will fit in your jar, and you can determine how many less important items to include later.
In short, we must be willing to let go of the life we have, even the life we think we “should live”, in order to live the success-filled life that is waiting for us. (Paraphrased sentence based on a quote by Joseph Borg)
You Are Your Own Hero
My dear friend, spiritual soul sister, and resilience collaborator Rachele Brooke Smith talks about being the hero of our own lives. She gives brilliant examples that allow us to see us as the superheroes of our destiny, to channel the power and conviction of being heroic to face our trials.
Yet.
Without realizing it, so many of us relegate ourselves to a victim status instead of elevating to our true nature as the superhero of our lives.
How can we cast off the victimhood and take control of our potential and power?
In order to create the sustainability to support your success, consider:
Leave the “if only’s” behind: Blaming everyone and everything else for our problem and shortfalls, but it also chains us to those circumstances.
Conduct a Joy v. Stress audit – think about the people and activities that consume your time, which ones bring you joy and which ones promote stress? How can you do more of what brings you joy and less of what creates stress?
Focus on what IS working and do more of that. Change is tricky. Yet, it is easier to engage in more elements of our life that encourage our development and less of the elements that are detractors. By doing more of what is working, we can effectively “crowd out” the less productive elements.
“You are not a born winner. You are not a born loser. You are a born chooser.” Lou Holtz
When we harness the power of choice in our lives, we can cast off the things that make us feel powerless, even like a victim, and empower ourselves to be the author, the architect, the hero in our own lives.
Healing
We often say, “Time heals all wounds.” Yes, time can heal.
Yet.
We must take an active role in our own healing, not a passive approach by simply waiting for time to pass.
Instead, our approach to healing needs to be more akin to what Andy Warhol described when we said, “They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
Healing from our past wounds, traumas, and losses isn’t just for us. By up-leveling our healing, we raise the collective positive energetic vibration of our family, friend circles, and communities.
In order to create the sustainability to support your success, consider:
Women and men who heal themselves, heal their children’s children.
How are we able to heal generations to come through our own healing?
Because through our own healing, we cease to engage in detrimental patterns of behavior and interactions.
“Times does not heal all wounds, it just gives them space to sink into the subconscious, where they will still impact your emotions and behavior. What heals is going inward, loving yourself, accepting yourself, listening to your needs, addressing your attachments and emotional history, learning how to let go, and following your intuition.” Young Pueblo
Make the smallest meaningful changes possible as you explore the parts and pieces of yourself that desire healing. This will ensure you don’t take on too much too soon.
Healing has its own timeline. Healing does not subscribe to the neat orientations of our watches or calendars.
Focus on making progress toward, the possibility of healing, not perfection. Progress can always be made. Perfection does not exist. Train your healing on what is attainable and celebrate your successes.
Expect challenge. It’s not if challenge will show up in your life, especially when you’re on a healing journey, it’s when. Plan for challenge to occur and cultivate relationships that will support you in your quest.
Recognize that healing rarely happens all at once. Don’t be discouraged if you feel that you’re taking one step forward, and at times, two steps backward. First, you must declare trajectory (intent) before you can declare victory (achievement).
When we shift our mentality from “I am broken” to “My growing and healing is beautiful”, watch how your life changes for the better.
In our society, there is a lot of shame around experiences that hurt us, that make us feel broken in some way. Our Shame Bias, the belief that others will be accepted for their trials, while we will be rejected if people truly knew us and our experiences, is false. Yet, still frightening.
Begin to shift the script in your head to believe that what nearly broke you, makes you beautiful.
Yeah, that experience you had might have broken your heart. But it also opened your eyes. Take that as a win!
As we embark on the winter holidays, rather than getting swept up in the season, immersed in the stress, take charge of your life, by taking a step back to focus on your success through sustainability, being your own hero, and healing. 2020 and the ensuing decade could be some of your best years yet.
The best is yet to come. I look forward to your immense success in 2020!
About Dr. Taryn Marie
Dr. Taryn Marie is uniquely focused on enhancing resilience in leadership* and in life, to allow people to bring out the best of themselves each day. She is the author of “Flourish or Fold: The Five Practices of Particularly Resilient People”, which is expected to release as a book in 2020. She is the former Head of Executive Leadership Development at Nike and founded her own company, Resilience Leadership, where she serves as the Chief Resilience Officer. Her research and thought leadership has been showcased in publications such as Thrive Global, Women’s Daily Magazine, Elucid, Medium, on television broadcasts such as NBC, and for apps such as Happify and eMindful. Dr. Taryn will be featured in the upcoming documentary, Breaking Free, focused on living a resilient life, also scheduled for release in 2020, and is a sought-after agent-represented international inspirational speaker who regularly serves as the keynote for conferences as well as corporations. Despite developing her own resilience, she always feels stress around the holidays too!
*Leadership might sound like a lofty term, but if you have a heart and a mind, you are a leader, and likely at least one person looks up to you.
Taryn Marie Stejskal, Ph.D.
Chief Resilience Officer (CRO) & Founder, Resilience Leadership
Former Head, Executive Leadership Development and Talent Strategy, Nike
Website: www.resilience-leadership.com
Email: [email protected]
IG: @tarynmariestejskal
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