New Beginnings

As we start our new chapter for 2023, I continue to be inspired by the resilience of our clients and program community. These women keep moving forward, despite setbacks, rejection, business triumphs and failures, shifting priorities, family, complicated relationships, and overcoming capacity limits for themselves and others. I am grateful for the times like the holiday season when I, too, can pause and take in how far we've come and decide what's ahead of us.

As the new year begins, can we feel the need to change our lives, start on a new path, do new things, say goodbye to old habits that hinder us, and create new ways of being that serve us?

When we make new plans, we often feel excited and uplifted, with revived motivation and hope that "these changes will stick ." It's also easy to feel apprehensive about change and repeating past experiences. 

Remember, you can always find your way forward.

Reflection and Self-examination

Reflecting on your last year is one of the most effective exercises for growth and development. Simply put, the best way to make this year better than last year is to remember where you spent your time, how you felt about it, and if it helped you reach your goals and life balance.

We can ask more encompassing questions through reflection: what did you do better? What mattered most to you? Who counted? Who do you have to thank? Where did you fail, learn from, or find success?

For example, I made considerable strides in my health and fitness last year for our wedding. However, after reflection and evaluation, there was little reward for my exhaustive efforts. As a result, I needed to re-evaluate my goals and timeline need to come forward to 2023.

However, I learned a great deal about what health and fitness mean to me, what exercises bring me joy, and where we need to focus on what I desire. These learnings and clarity make my 2023 direction and goals much easier. 

Set, Re-set, or Revisit Your Foundations

At FRONTIER Leadership, we help women to build a values-based leadership and living foundation as part of our career advancement and business growth programs. With over twenty years of leadership practice, I believe this approach is the most rewarding for individuals and their teams, businesses, and organizations. 

Having the right foundations help us to gain enough momentum to bypass distractions and old patterns that hook us in. It can be very tempting to go down a winding path for another development lesson versus being grounded and rooted in your values and value before you take action.

It brings greater focus and calm to the chaos and stops self-doubt and insecurity before it starts, which, suppressed or not, often leads to anxiety, stress, fatigue, and burnout.

It invites us to listen and feel more deeply, so we can think more clearly. And this gives us greater capacity. 

Set New Goals

If you are wandering and waving around, setting new goals for the next 3 months and year ahead, will be the much-needed oxygen you need to feel revived. Food for the soul, you will feel a new energy spark inside you.

It will give you meaning and purpose.

Goal attainment, however, is a skill set. Goals that have steep learning curves will also feel different because you may achieve learning before you achieve your goals, as I noted above.

One thing I've noticed this year in my health journey that is pertinent to share, especially in setting goals in newer areas, is that they are DO-ABLE, meaning: Before going after a goal, test your skills on the runway.

• You can already do it partly; there is nothing to learn that will prevent you from the activity. Ex. Walking vs. running.
• It's repeatable with little or mild effort.
• Pick a frequency, accomplishment, and metric that inspires you and rewards you each time you complete it.
• Set a goal, and complete it.
• Reflect and self-examine the goal attainment, competence, and confidence you feel while being "sure of yourself."
• Repeat.