They say every year is a chance for a new beginning. But in this world full of chaos, unresolved issues, and people haunted by their own demons, what does it really mean to “look forward” in life? That’s what hosts Jason Abell and Steve Scanlon are going to focus on today. From confronting your demons to making that huge leap of change, tune in to know how to create that new chapter in your life in the best way it can be!
In this episode, Steve and Jason discuss the following:
- Why don’t we like to resolve this?
- Facing a demon
- Creating a theme for the year
- Keeping it simple
Key Takeaways:
- Do you have an aversion to creating new year’s resolutions? Ask yourself why and reflect on the reason. Think about something you’d want to do and imagine if failure couldn’t happen.
- Whenever you commit to resolving something, expect that you’re going to face a demon.
- Instead of having plans, goals, or a resolution, try having a theme for the year. Think of one word that you’d like your year’s theme to be. Some good examples are “mindfulness,” “strength,” or “relationships.”
- Don’t make it complicated. What’s simple gets done. Create a broad picture but also keep your eye on what’s the next right step towards achieving your goal.
“If failure weren't even part of the equation, what would you try?” - Steve Scanlon
“Simple just seems to get done.” - Jason Abell
Connect with Steve and Jason:
Website: Rewire, Inc.: Transformed Thinking
Email: grow@rewireinc.com
Show notes by Podcastologist: Justine Talla
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
---
Listen to the podcast here
Steve And Jason: Looking Forward
This is our last episode of this calendar year, 2022. How about that?
I do wonder how people are going to look back at 2022. How are you going to look back at 2022?
Last time, we talked a little bit about that on the episode. Grateful. That’s how I'm looking back at 2022. There were some amazing and strenuous challenges, and at the same time, there were some amazing, fun, successful, and funny things. I'm grateful for the year, to be honest with you. That's not a, "We are on a show, so say something nice and positive," but no, that's how I'm looking back at it. I'm even grateful for the challenges.
We had some. As you were saying that, I was thinking, do you ever talk to somebody and they go, "It's all good." Every time I hear someone say, "It's all good," my first thought is, "You don't dig very deep, do you?"
What's wrong if you are saying, “It's all good?”
First of all, it's never all good and all bad but it doesn't mean we don't learn and grow. I like the way that you put that. I am grateful, but I'm not grateful because of all the positive stuff that happened. I'm grateful that we do this work. Are you kidding? I'm so grateful for the work because I get to hear it myself from clients, and you and I practice what we preach. I'm so grateful that we get to coach because we get to also hear it as coaches, and some of the things that come up in coaching sessions are relevant to me.
You and I talked about this, which is a looping conversation that we had a couple of times a week when I was doing a workshop a couple of weeks ago. I had a Rewire client come up to me and went on and on about how his Coach Lindsay was so incredibly helpful to him. He then named specific ways that she has helped him professionally and personally. I get all warm and googly inside when I hear that. You and I have that experience often, which is fun.
That could be the makings of a whole show but it's the end of the year and let's get all relevant on people.
This is going to be a shorter episode like last time, which is the second to last episode of the year. We talked about reflection and how important that was, framing, reframing, and framing storming, and that type of thing. In this episode, we want to look forward. This is the last episode of the calendar year. In a few days, it's going to be 2023.
Time to look forward. We wanted to chat about that a little bit, maybe about some of our own experiences, some of the things that we've talked to some clients about, and maybe some tools along the way. I know you've got some thoughts. I have been in attendance at a workshop or two where you've talked about New Year's resolutions and your take on that. I would love for you to give us a buzz through of that if you don't mind.
Before we dive into that, as you are speaking, I have to share a juicy insight. We might have mentioned this last time. We do these episodes. One’s looking back, and one's looking forward, and yet we try to spend so much time being present. It reminds me that looking back and reflecting for the purpose of learning is good, and there's a season for it. Looking forward and making plans is good, and there's a time to do that.
That's why some people take this idea of learning to be present, which is good. We should be. We are human beings. You are not going to live in this second every day of your life. If you did, you probably wouldn't make it across the street. I wanted to call that paradox out. I do think it's super important to be present. You and I are often present with each other but there's a time to go, "What could 2023 be about," plan and think through. That's cool to do that.
That's what brings us here now.
Let's talk about resolutions. Again, this might be a tool for some people. I will ask whole groups of people, and maybe I'm asking if you are reading this, "Did you do a resolution this year? Did you do one last year?" There's no science in this. As more and more time goes on, it seems to me that fewer and fewer people even do resolutions. Is there any science to that? I don't know. I've asked 200, 300-sized groups of people, and you will get 3 or 4 people.
I then ask the question, "Why didn't the rest of you? Why didn't everybody do a New Year's resolution?" I'm not trying to shame anybody. I'm trying to learn why don't we resolve to do things. Again, to me, the answer to that question is powerful as a way to learn about who we are. I'm curious from you if you've ever asked a client, friend or anybody whether they do or don't do resolutions. A lot of times, people don't. If they don't do a resolution, why don't people? What have you heard?
Not only what I've heard but what I've experienced personally from time to time. You get fired up over something, make a resolution, and then there is diminishing intent. There are distractions. There are changes in seasons. We talked about seasons in our last episode. I've done the same thing in a workshop, and I had somebody raise their hand when I asked that question. They said, "I don't want to let myself down," and so I thought that there were all kinds of answers to that.
Since we are on the show, I want to ask the people reading. What's your answer to that? Maybe your answer is, "I do them all the time, and I nail them 100% every year." That seems unlikely, given where we are but sometimes people do, and that's cool if you do. Most that I've experienced don't. It's for many of those reasons and more.
Neurobiologically, one of the things that we've learned is that all the brain needs are one good juicy failure for it to say, "Don't try that again." There's a bunch of people that end up not "getting back on the horse." The horse already kicked him off once but nobody likes saying that out loud. My experience is that you get people, including me, the guy in the mirror, says, "I don't have the time."
All the brain needs is one good juicy failure for it to say, “yeah, don't try that again.”
It's crowded with some other excuses. It's not an excuse.
We don't know how to say, "I didn't like how it felt that I failed." That one person told you that. That's freaking awesome. The reason that's awesome is because, "If you can name it, you can tame it," we said this last time. "That's what that thing is." Maybe you are reading this, going, "That's maybe why I don't go to the gym beyond January 3rd. I don't want to fail again. The feeling of failure was horrible. I hated that."
The brain remembered whether it was an implicit or explicit memory. It coded that. It will try hard to keep you on the ground and not get back on the horse, and whether it's probable or likely, doesn't matter. It already happened once. "I don't want to do that again," and so we stay off the horse. Think about the word resolve. You are literally resolving. Again, I don't know if that's etymologically perfect or not but if you are resolving, that means you've tried to solve it before. There would be no reason to resolve it if you solved it. If you've tried to solve it before and are resolving it now, again by deductive reasoning here, you have failed before.
That doesn't feel very good.
That's why we are resolving. We are resolving probably an old problem. Here's the tool and something that we've used and do in coaching a lot. By the way, one of the things that I've heard is that people don't do New Year's resolutions because why not a February 12th or a June 13th resolution?
There's nothing wrong with that, either.
I don't care when it is to do it but let's pretend we are going to do it. Here's a coaching question and a question that I have for all the readers. It's at the end of the year. We got a magic wand. Let's do a magic wand exercise. Let's pretend that the thing that you are going to resolve failure couldn't happen.
I like where you are going already.
When we watch, "Houston, there's a problem, and failure is not an option," for a second, you couldn’t fail. My question for people as they are thinking about the New Year is, "If failure weren't even part of the equation, what would you try?" I would even ask people, "What's the first thing that comes to your mind?" That might be something to consider putting into the form of a resolution.
As you say that, I get a jolt of excitement. I'm like, "That's a different way to look at it. That's fun."
Again, that's what I've been thinking I do because partly, we do this work, and we want to practice what we preach. I tried it every year. I do a resolution. I can't claim to you that I'm perfectly successful but I can't also sit up there and help other people through the coaching of getting back on the horse. For me, it feels hypocritical not to get back on my own horse. I try to resolve certain things every year, which has been helpful. We want to stay positive here. When you resolve something, you are going to face a demon.
Yes. This whole planning thing, resolution, resolving or framing it the way that you framed it, sometimes it's not all fun. Demons and obstacles are part of the drill. I said something like this last time. If you are the type of person that's reading this, you are up to the task, even though there are some demons there.
I don't even know if that's the right word for it, and maybe it's not even the best coaching question but what demons would you be willing to face? There are some people that are going to read this go, "Can't we talk about positive stuff?" Yes, but remember reality too. Maybe I'm wrong about this. I’m willing to learn even from you but for me, sometimes calling the demon out is better for me because then, at least, I know what I'm going to face.
This is a little bit like we talked about last time also, "Name it to tame it," when you can pre-think out the obstacles, the demons or the things that are in the way, now we can go, "What are we going to do with that?" as opposed to the unknown, which is way worse.
Let's say you are a smoker, and we are not quite at the end of the year, and you decide, "I'm going to make that resolution on January 1st," even saying that to yourself, you will face a demon. The question becomes, “What do I need to do to possess the courage to face that demon?”
There are some other tools. Before this episode, I was thinking about what we were going to say. There are some practical things that we have, things we’ve created over the years and things I’ve heard from other people. A couple of years ago, we created this 30-day Sprint deal where that may be something that helps a reader kick off the year. It's a free tool that we have.
It's on our website. It's called a 30-day Sprint. It gives you a little ten-minute project every day to take you from a particular goal that you would like to have and achieve that goal within a 30-day timeframe. If you wanted to kickstart yourself into something personally or even professionally, that might be the avenue to have the help. I've gone through the 30-day Sprint myself. I know you, Steve, and others on the team have. It's helpful. It's super practical, tangible, and helpful.
I've got coaching clients that don't do yearly goals. They will do 90-day plans. They will chunk down their year into either quarters or 90-day plans, and it seems more palatable that way. There's a level of chunking down that is good but also, there are things that change. Even this last year, in January and February of 2022, we didn't know what was going to happen with the economy and had it twist and turn as abruptly as it did.
Everybody's plans changed in the middle of 2022 because of the market and economic conditions or whatever. Ninety-day plans tend to work well with chunking down with things that change during the year. I'm going to go from chunking down to the big year again. I would love to hear your color. I've done something in the last few years that I swiped and adapted from a podcast that I listened to. It was this idea of having a theme for the year or a word for the year. As I journal from time to time and as I talk to my own mentors and coaches, that's something that they can latch onto and go, "How's that going?"
My theme for this year was the word strong and strength. When I created that, I was thinking about my physical strength because it's no secret. I've even said it on this show, and you are familiar with this about me that I've got pretty bad back issues. The stronger my body is, the less back issues I tend to have. I wanted to work on strengthening my body. There are some things that happened this year that made it pretty impractical for me to strengthen my body the way that I wanted to but there were some other aspects of my life that got strong as a result of that theme.
Maybe you heard this and heard my story or the idea of having a word or a theme for the year, and you go, "I want to pick out a word. I want to pick out a theme," that gives you something to think about for yourself as you are meditating or journaling. It also gives you something to talk to other people about, maybe your board of advisors, partner, spouse, coach, or whatever. I wanted to mention those random ideas there but as we think about a New Year and different plans, projections, goals, and ideas, those are some things that I've certainly found helpful over the years.
The theme thing strikes me because, with the theme, you can create some other things around that. We got to get to the tangible things but I have been able to hold that one with some clients for a long time throughout the whole year and come back to that, "Let's return to the theme." As clients recreate different goals and ideas to be able to ask them, "How is that serving the theme?" That has been helpful.
You brought up something, and I love that you are throwing out, hopefully, we are not throwing up or out, a whole bunch of different ideas and ways that people can look forward and a whole idea of planning, in general. It's the one thing over time that it's odd because even from a business planning perspective, different people are in different places with different roles. Each one of those plans might be more or less elaborate and sophisticated. There are some people that like to have a whole plan on a 3x5 card that you keep in your pocket or something like that. I will say that the simpler you can make your plan, probably the better. What do you think about that?
The simpler you can make your plan, the better.
It's such a good call.
If you put together a 90-page plan that's got marketing and performance stuff, for most people that I know, it's hard to live that out every day. Again, I'm not saying that's not fruitful but oftentimes, those find their way into drawers that we don't look at.
It's true. It's a good call. The simpler, the better. I've noticed that as well.
That brings me full circle, even back to the resolution thing. If you are going to start something new or plan something, I put that to you, Jason. You threw out some good things. One of the things that I might say is if you read this, whether that plan is in the form of a resolution, business plan, theme or however you do it, if you are going to make a plan and look forward, you all start something and end it, be sure to make it simple.
The first place that I went to is simple. That's one of our values at Rewire. For the very reason that you are bringing it up now. Simple seems to get done, and complex doesn't often.
This comes right from Charles Duhigg's work in The Power of Habit, but it's the power of steps. Themes are good but if you are going to make a plan and resolution, you do this fantastically well. We can't even seem to get out of a meeting with you where we are not going great. What's the next step? Sometimes our plans are these big things. "I'm going to lose weight." "Great goal. What's the next step?"
There's a book that this author, Emily P Freeman, called The Next Right Thing, and that book sticks with me. I highly recommend the book. It's so good from a self-reflection standpoint but also productivity. I don't know that it's necessarily even a productivity book. If you are referring to some large audacious goal, weight loss, reorganization of your company or whatever it is, “What is the very next right thing for me to do?” Take that step. All that you can do is do the next right thing. You can't do the next right 30 things but you can do the very next right thing. That always sticks with me, which is probably why I'm always saying that in our staff meetings. “What is the next step?”
It's good because even with energy and enthusiasm, we go, "We are going to do this thing.” “Great, and what's the first step in that?" Maybe you will walk away from this show, going, "It's the end of the year. I’m going to look forward. I'm going to make a plan and a resolution." Great. Maybe the thing is, "How do I make it simple? What's the next step in that? Maybe themes." These are ways that you and I can think of to approach a New Year and make it a great year, irrespective of what's dealt to us by the world. How about that?
To end with something like that is good. I'm glad you brought that up.
If you look back like we did last time, as you said, there were some difficult things. We are grateful for the difficulty because it taught us but there were also great things. Think of it in 2022. You were dealt a hand. How did you play the hand? You are going to be dealt a hand in 2023.
Yes. You just don't know what it is yet.
As you and I get into the work of Susan David in emotional resilience, we practice things like, "It's okay not to know," but for some people, that's unnerving. Maybe that's why people don't make plans.
It's so good but it goes under the theme of controlling what you can control and not trying to control the things you can't control. That's a whole other episode but knowing that, "I'm going to do my thing and control it the best that I possibly can no matter what's going on in the environment, the economy or the people that I'm connected with, this is what I'm going to do," and I love that idea.
Don't try to control the things that you can't control.
This is a new episode, and we have to end here, but I have one question about something you said. This is for you personally, Jason. I don’t even know how we do this. I don’t even know why I’m setting it up like this. If you look forward to 2023 and say, whether it's your family, work or stuff, assign a percentage of the stuff that's going to happen that you can control versus stuff that's going to happen that is out of your control, I'm curious. What's your percentage? Maybe I'm getting older, and it's funny that I'm learning that I don't have as much control as I think about more.
I get what you are saying there. I don't know that I can do percentages. What I know for sure is that in 2023, there are going to be some things that happen, like my dog barking. That's what's going to happen. What I do know is that there are going to be a lot of things out of my control that I don't even know what they are yet. For me, to recognize that and go, "There are going to be some curve balls that are going to be thrown. I don't know what they are going to be but they are going to happen." When they do happen, my reaction won't be throwing my hands and going, "I can't believe this is happening." It's like, "I did not know that was going to happen," and then we move forward. It's perspective.
Look Forward: There are going to be a lot of things out of our control that we know are going to happen. Recognizing that allows you to avoid going, “oh, I can't believe this is happening,” and instead move forward. It's perspective.
It's because we are coaches. We want to do a toward-state. I will give you something that I believe you can control. It's your response. It's not the situation. It's your response. This gets philosophical but we seem to have been given this gift of life, and one of the things maybe it’s the only thing. You can control your response to it but not the thing itself.
We talk about stress and anxiety. "He's stressing me out. She's stressing me out. That stresses me out." It's always like this external thing, and you are like, "At the end of the day, I can only do something with how I view that," but that realization for me was an insight one day. I then stopped looking to control everything that I wasn't controlling anyway and started focusing on my own responses to things. It might not seem to other people but that was a revelation to me. I'm still practicing that. That was a lot. We are always hoping that people walk away with insights, and maybe it wasn't everything but one little thing in there. I had some insights and hoped you did too.
I did. In that last part, there is something that I wrote down, the unexpected versus what we can control or not control. I'm starting to make my own notes for my own reflection and planning time, and that is such a good reminder. That was my main insight now as I learned from you and learned from our discussion. As we say at the end of every episode, it doesn't matter what our insights are, at least for you readers but what matters is, “What were your insights.”
I would like to thank you. I would like to end by almost some blessings on people. Whatever you make a plan for or resolve to do, may you make it simple, take small steps, believe, and have the courage to face demons. As you look forward, whatever curve balls come, they are coming. They always have but may you go into it knowing that you are more equipped than ever to understand and make meaning that works for you well, irrespective of whatever cards you are dealt or balls that are thrown for you in the year ahead.
Look Forward: Whatever you plan to make and whatever you resolve to do, may you make it simple. May you take small steps, may you believe, and may you have the courage to face demons.
In a day or two, it will be 2023, so Steve, happy New Year. Readers, happy New Year. It's great to have another year in the books of The Insight Interviews.
Happy New Year to you. Peace.
Important Links
- 30-day Sprint
- The Power of Habit
- The Next Right Thing
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/RewireJason/
- https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/Steve-Scanlon-Lizard/
- Grow@RewireInc.com