The Start before the Start

It’s hard to believe that we are heading into the last few weeks of 2009. For some it will be, “Good Riddance!”, for others, “Not Bad..” or “Hey, we did great!”

Regardless of your expression and feelings about 2009, there is a new year and new opportunities in front of you and the start of your next year officially begins in just 3 weeks! A time of renewal, of re-dedicating ourselves to our purpose and, hopefully, gaining useful insights into the patterns or occurrences of the past year.

I really struggle between helping people through talking about ‘Purpose’ and helping them through talking about ‘Process’. Process isn’t sexy. It’s not the perception that’s given off by World-Renowned, Charismatic, ‘Motivational Speakers’! They have the reputation to stir up the inner spirit and to ‘motivate’ us to believe in the power of the dream and dream and dream and dream!!!

I LOVE THAT! It’s what the ‘Burled Arch’ is all about… Reaching the Dream!

AND my heart goes to, “How?”

I think that it may, actually, be worse to have a dream and not know how to make it happen than to never know what that dream or purpose was in the first place.

You see, there has to be BOTH – purpose and process, “the dream” and “the daily”, if we are ever going to reach our “purpose”….. “on purpose”

To start the process, we have 3 areas of focus for the next 3 weeks.

  1. What’s the dream? Has it changed or revised since the start of last year? (Burled Arch)
  2. Review and learn from the progress of our race toward the Burled Arch in 2009 (Evaluate and Evolve)
  3. Purpose the process. (Ready and Checkpoints)

The Action for our ‘Race’ will occur in 2010 – and although it is EXTREMELY cheesy – the only way that we are going to “Win in ’10” – is if we have “Purpose” AND “Process” .

I warned you about the ‘cheese’ factor, right?

To close out 2009 with the most benefit possible let’s spend some time this week thinking about the last year. I would encourage you to take a consultants approach to your year, as opposed to a participants approach.

As a participant, you are going to feel all of the bumps and bruises over again as you relive each moment…

As a consultant, we recognize the emotions but search, dig, and glean for the lessons and ways for ‘process improvement’

Try to step outside of your year and take a look, if needed – meet with your team or someone outside of you and your team for this process – it will pay tremendous dividends when done right!

The next 3 weeks will be a time of getting ready for the start of 2010. Let’s start STRONG – in fact, let’s start NOW.

Have a great week!