Happy New Year!
In the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of listening to many tales of the past year…the best and the worst, the weird and the wonderful as well as visions, goals and desires for this coming year.
As you might guess, being a bit of a planning junkie… I love this time of year.
Many years ago, my new year plans were HUGE. I’d have pages and pages of goals and lists of things to do that pretty much included EVERYTHING I thought needed to change.
With the best of intentions, I’d dive into the year but being so split focused, my energy would dissipate quickly and I had very little capacity to create any real traction.
Frustrated and spinning in circles this only grew my lack of confidence and trust in my ability to achieve anything at all.
When I took a good step back, I realized that it was my approach that needed to change before anything else could.
It was time to stop trying to do SO MANY THINGS at the same time.
So, for the last decade I’ve been researching, testing and simplifying my planning process that has grown into The Define Design Align (DDA) Method and is the foundation for my work and life.
Each year as my vision expands and my business grows… my plan gets SMALLER.
And every year, I get more productive and effective in making sustainable changes, reaching my goals faster and staying more grounded in alignment with the experience that I want to be living.
The work doesn’t get easier, it just gets easier to get down to doing the right work.
The secret to your success, whatever that is for you is in your ability to get crystal clear on those very few big rocks – those key things that are going to create the most important ripples in your world, get fiercely focused and show up for them each and every day.
I spend most of January working with my clients in reviewing their plans, supporting their strategy development and mapping out their year ahead.
And without fail, by the end of the process, 100% of those plans are stripped down by 20% – 80%.
You can do it all. You just can’t do it all at the same time.
When you try to do too many things, you rob yourself of the success you are working so hard to achieve.
So, as you lean into the coming year, I invite you to do the following:
DEFINE what you truly want, identify your big rocks and decide what you are focused on first.
DESIGN your road map by taking those big rocks and reverse engineering them into smaller steps.
ALIGN your time, daily practices, thoughts and actions to support you to up fiercely focused on what matters most.
Rinse and repeat.
It’s never as simple as a three or five or seven step process… but then again, maybe it is.
Maybe… we’ve been making it all way more complicated than it needs to be and simplifying and doing less is the answer.
So, what are your big rocks?
This holiday season is oddly stretched out further into January and I know some people are still on holidays, which is why I’m extending The DDA Academy FINAL REGISTRATION DEADLINE to MONDAY, January 8th at 12 PM.
The DDA Academy is a robust journey that provides you with a tremendous amount of support, accountability and training. And at the core, it is built on a very simple method that once mastered, will help you change the way you run your business and live your life.
It’s a big rock with countless ripples.
If you are interested, watch the three videos that are at the bottom of The DDA Academy page where I walk you through The DDA Method, the DDA Academy Structure and answer some key questions. Or hit reply to this email to connect directly.
Here’s to a year of big rocks and ripples, more focus, traction and ease.