Have you ever tried decorating a room, completely from scratch? I’m talking starting from blank walls that are the wrong color. Then transforming the space in 24 hours into the exact feeling you wanted to have. Making it something that will make your mark on anyone who enters. To get there you would need to do some research, decide the color, the style, and what you want to feel when you walk into that room. Then you could start looking at paint, furniture, artwork, and function.
Typically when you consider the functionality, your plan needs to change a bit right? I mean, you might want one of those giant bed-like couches but how will you walk from the stairs to the patio door with that taking up all the space? You might spend half of your day just on planning. Now you have paint that needs to dry. You have trim that needs to be touched up. There is old furniture and pictures that need to be moved out, a floor that needs to be cleaned. It is exhausting just typing it out. That is why you don’t do it in 24 hours. You recognize that it will take more than a day to make your mark even in your own home.
The same is true for enhancing your career allowing you to make your mark at work. If you wait until January first to set your vision, create your goals, and build the habits it will take to get you there, you could be months in before you see any progress. There is nothing magical about January that creates a fresh start for you. You create that energy, and you can create it right now. Want all the goodness in a video to take on the go? Click here for the YouTube version.
Why you want to gain momentum now
Success isn’t built from one single event, it’s built on the back of a thousand tiny habits. Those habits take time to germinate and take root in your life. That means, to create the success you want, you need to start working toward it today. Typically it takes about 21 days to build a daily habit. To have that habit deeply rooted into your daily routine and become an unconscious part of the day, just part of your identity, it takes about 21 days. If you want that room of yours to feel different, you need to treat it differently for 21 days. Finding the perfect color and throw pillow to inspire focus won’t matter if you don’t practice focusing in that room for the next 3 weeks. It won’t become second nature to you.
What your 2025 can look like with 30 days of momentum
You want your career to look different in 2025. You want to be well on your way to that next promotion, to have senior leaders see you as a solution they can trust in and rely on. Your team could gain the synergy and perseverance to handle projects independently without you being in every meeting to keep things on track. Your boss could finally recognize how much they rely on you and reward you for it, with something bigger than a marketing stress ball. If this sounds like what you want for next year, start building the habits of a person who achieves it now.
The best part is, to gain that momentum, you don’t even have to have the exact destination mapped out yet. You can build momentum toward your goals for 2025, before you even know what those goals are and in less than 40 minutes a day.
Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com
3 things to start today to make your mark
Create energy
In his book High Performance Habits, Brendon Burchard calls your body a power plant. You don’t just have energy that you expend, you actually create it. You take in inputs that you can then transform into energy that you focus into any activity you choose. So where a hydro power plant is taking in water and transforming it into energy that it can push to power homes and businesses, your body can do the same. You consume food, water, information, even activity, and you transform it into energy. You can then push that energy that you have created into projects that help you showcase your abilities, mastering new skills, or working better with your team because you created the energy you needed to be your best.
Which type would you be?
For years I’ve seen two different types of executives. The first type is the low energy, low effectiveness executives. They skip lunch, opting for a bag of popcorn at their desks while they continue to plug away at emails. They almost always have a ‘why me’ mentality and work late reacting to every problem that came across their desk. The other is a high energy, high power executives. These are the VP’s you see grabbing their protein bowl with a mentee after their noon work out. Their minds always seem sharp as they guide their middle managers and peers to find solutions. They are also the ones who have done enough proactive work to support their goals and values, that they’re certain any problem that does come across the desk after hours can be handled the next day.
What would it feel like to have that level of ease in your current role? If you did have that ease, how much focus and energy could you refocus on taking your next step? Eating nourishing food, working out, and spending time with people sounds too basic. I get it. The thing is though, these are foundational practices. These are your ticket to entry to move forward in your bigger goals.
List your wins
Did you know that your brain has a filter system to determine what information is important and what isn’t? It’s true. You have what is called a reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS is a network of neurons in your brain that regulates what gets your attention and what doesn’t. That’s why moments after you buy a red car there are dozens of them on the road on your way home where previously no one in your neighborhood had ever considered the color red. You told your RAS that you now pay attention to red cars and it definitely understood the assignment. This is more than a fun factoid, you can use this to leverage the power of your RAS for your good.
When you list your wins, in a journal or even your phone’s notes app, you are telling your RAS, filter in the wins. By using your conscious brain to pull out the wins and physically write them out, you are reinforcing that this is important. Your RAS will again understand the assignment. You’ll naturally start paying more attention to the create work that you’re doing. Added bonus, by writing them out you get to practice sharing the wins in a way other people can understand. You go past basking in the glow of the feeling you had when you nailed that presentation to articulating that it was your command of the information mixed with your relatablity to the team that led to that win.
Bonus tip to use this to make your mark for the team
Recently I worked with a client who hated listing his own wins but agreed that the concept was useful. He stayed in the practice for a full month of coaching, transforming his RAS in the process. However, he also used this tip with his team. When times are hard and the team is frustrated by continuously getting new projects, he shares the what they’ve already achieved. Meaning he was activating their RAS, and his own, to keep their focus high rather than on the problems. This practice gets the team motivated, inspired, and helps them move forward focusing on where they win, and how how they get there.
Create accountability
Why is it that we want to work on ourselves in private? We want to hide away in a cocoon as a caterpillar and emerge as a beautiful butterfly. Well, we’re not bugs. Where butterflies might be wired to transform, we’re wired to stay comfortable unless we push out of it. That is why you’re 95% more likely to hit a goal, even a small one like listing your wins, when you have accountability. Without accountability you’re relying on motivation and self-discipline and honestly, we typically don’t have it on our own. People are meant to thrive together so that when one person falls another can pick them back up.
There is one small caveat to make your mark, make sure it’s yours
The people you surround yourself with have to be people who will pick you up and set you in the direction you wanted to go. It doesn’t take much to find someone who will pick you up when you fall. Most people will pick you up, dust you off, and start you on their path. So you have to be careful to create accountability with people who are going the same way as you.
Eight days in your bed might be super cozy. You might skip packing your lunch and your running clothes and then focus on what you did wrong telling your RAS to focus on the fail. Any friend will say, it’s ok. To keep your momentum you want accountability from the friend who will say, I’ll make time for a walk together after work. Not from the one will say, If you’re skipping your workout should we get Mexican for lunch?!
Surround yourself with other winners. Imagine if you had a group of 5 women? All of them creating energy, talking about what is working for them, and you knew they were going to ask you about it too, you’d rock. You could rock these tips for 21 days, easy, and then maybe you even set aside a night to celebrate and set your vision. This could be your new circle that propels you all forward in 2025 and beyond. And now I’m excited, if you do this, I want in. Send me an email at info@kellyhirn.com so we can keep in touch.