How to create your personal leadership plan

A new year marks a fresh opportunity to centre our lives around new beginnings. Each year, we reflect on the years passed and consider the new year ahead. We have done so much in our lives, had so many experiences, and often arrive at a point we ask ourselves: What’s next for me?

Each year, we can count on change; we can count on new experiences. With each year, we can count on continuing our quest to pursue happiness and fulfilment. The pursuit of happiness and fulfilment drives us to enhance the quality of our lives year after year. When a major shift happens in our lives, we must control who we will become or risk never reaching our potential.I have reinvented myself several times in my life. Each time I have done it, I have deliberately forged my new path with foresight. When you wait for the future to find you, you will wait in vain; you will be lost in confusion and frustration.

Have you lost track of your long-term goals and dreams in the everyday running around?

Are you thinking of starting your own business or switching careers? There is no better time than now to do so. Remember, a head full of fears has no space for dreams.

Take the opportunity of a new year to make new beginnings and get yourself back on track. Sit quietly, close your eyes, and imagine the people, places, or situations you need to leave behind. Imagine the future that you want and imagine how you will feel in that new place. Stand for a moment and silently voice your appreciation to God for everything that came before now.

Read also: How Strategic Leaders Can Develop a Growth Mind-set and win

Once you have given thanks with compassion and gratitude, imagine yourself walking away from the past and into the future. Write about your reinvention. Imagine a scene from it or write about how you had liked it to play out. Continue writing for as long as this exercise feels stimulating. Write scenes, dialogues, lists, and plans.

Make the future come alive. Write about how it will feel to be there. Keep your writing somewhere where you will look at it occasionally. Feel free to add to it. Surround yourself with visual reminders of the life you like to create. If it is a new job in a field, put images from that field somewhere you will see them every day. If it is a home, find a picture of a house you love and put it near your front door. It can be anything that reminds you of the life you’re moving towards.

Now that you have a vision of your future break it into workable tasks. What do you need to do every day to create that vision? Start a business? Search for a place to live. Make it specific. Make a list of everything you need to do and a schedule of when you will do it. Do it and commit to keeping doing it, one day at a time.

Close your eyes and see yourself walking towards your future every morning and evening. Always reconnect with why you’re moving toward this new possibility. Reinvention is neither easy nor consistently smooth. Often, we encounter resistance. We don’t want to let go, even of things that cause us pain or that are already out of our grasp. We often struggle with limiting beliefs or stories about ourselves that hold us back from trying new things.

Always keep your compass pointed to the new life, even amid any resistance or struggles you encounter on the way. Each time you find yourself slipping into old habits, making excuses, procrastinating on a task that might help you advance. Don’t bother wondering what is wrong with you or beating yourself up. Just ask yourself this: “What can I do at this moment to keep moving forward?” No matter what you feel in the moment, fear, self-critical, tired, lazy, or disappointed. Do something courageous to maintain the momentum, even if it’s one small thing at a time. Remember that real courage isn’t about not feeling fear; it’s about feeling fear and acting anyway. Choose courage instead of letting your fear choose your future for you.

Are you serious about transforming your life?

I’m not talking about improving yourself or making things a bit better. I’m talking about the reset button, a reinvention that changes the game. That means an overhaul in what you believe and how you do your things generally. The key to the reinvention of who you are, then, is to become someone you have never been before. Become someone with the rare skill of getting things done, making things happen, and creating outcomes that people seek.

To reinvent yourself, relish the idea of growth through failure. You must be willing to fail with grace. School isn’t over; school continues with life experiments and experiences and the constant disappointment of trying and learning.

Read something that challenges you to think differently. Discard what you think you know and instead learn what you need to learn every day. When you become the person in your vision, you will attract everything ‎else like a magnet.

Welcome to your best year ever.