Peter Drucker has this great quote and he says, “If you want to start something new, you have to stop doing something old.” It sounds pretty simple, but we don’t do that. Instead, we start something new and at the same time, we try to accomplish everything else that’s on our plate. Take back your time by learning how to hang up that old persona and the old beliefs you’re attached with and step into the next level of your life and your business.
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Letting Go Of The Old And Starting Something New
I want to talk about the simplicity around time management and productivity. Peter Drucker has this great quote, “If you want to start something new, you have to stop doing something old.” That seems obvious. The funny thing is we don’t do that. We start something new and at the same time, we try to accomplish everything else that’s on our plate. Often, we start many new things at the same time. Maybe you’re cursed like I am with the entrepreneur’s curse that’s like, “Squirrel, shiny penny,” new idea. Focus on that as well as all the other new things that you’re doing. Setting priorities is so important that you get clear, but you can only have a focus in one direction. That means that you have to have that one overarching goal that you’re going towards. There are sub-goals that are part of that. That’s what helps set your priorities so that you can work your way back to now and what are the next things that you need to do.
It’s critical that you step back and you see that this is still the right path, that this is still the right focus. It could be that when you examine the market or you identify a new opportunity that you decide to pivot and then to shift your focus. You can’t start multiple things at the same time and drive them forward and be successful because it will take too much time and energy as it does when we’re starting something new. You’re going to have to let go of something and de-commit in order to put your time and energy into one direction.
I wanted to share a little story about somebody that I’d been working with on a coaching basis, executive coaching. This person is taking their business to the next level. They had hit a plateau and they were ready and knew that there was so much more to be had and they wanted to get to the next level. Often, it comes back to that little quote which is, “If you want to start something new, you have to stop doing something old.” Sometimes, it’s the way we define ourselves and the way that we approach our business in the marketplace. It has to change as we get to the next level of our business because at each level, we have an identity and a belief system that comes along with that, that creates that plateau.
Setting priorities is important. You can only have a focus in one direction. Click To Tweet
In order for you to get to the next level, you’re also going to have to let go of the old so that you can move to the new. One of the processes that we were doing is we were shifting from that service provider mentality. That means that he was exchanging money for his hour. He would get an hourly rate and would be paid for that as that service provider. That’s only going to get him so far and that’s going to create a limitation in itself. With it has a whole set of beliefs as that service provider. In order to help him get to the next level, beyond the service provider, we had to break down and challenge all of those beliefs.
In a way, what we did was we hung up that old jersey. It’s like we use sometimes some football and sports analogies. Let’s say that you have a great player who’s had a great career, but the career at some point in time is going to come to an end. It’s the same with that service provider mentality for this gentleman and maybe for you as well. You get to a point where it’s time to retire that uniform, that belief system, that persona, that way of thinking, that approach to the marketplace. It’s time to hang it up so that you can bring in the new player that’s got those new set of ways of looking at the marketplace and new opportunities and innovations and partnerships that are able to happen as a result of that.
We’re talking about take back time. Imagine how much you will be able to grow individually and grow your business when you can get past that plateau. A lot of time and energy is spent banging up against that plateau. This is a way to take back your time, which is by deciding that you’re going to hang up that jersey from that old player and be ready to go to the next levels. This is something that I am working on as well in and around the speaking platforms that I’m working on and the type of speaker that I am. There’s always another level. I tell people a lot around karate that it’s the same front kick that you do when you’re a white belt and that you do when you’re a black belt, but you learn the nuances. In between, you become somebody different in the process of honing those skills and then becoming the master black belt. There’s always something that you can learn. Whatever level you’re at now, you can get to the next level. In order to do that, you have to let go of old ways of doing things and old ways of thinking.
That is something that I wanted to share with you and to challenge you. Get that jersey out and symbolically take a look at what that jersey represents to you. Go out and buy a jersey and put your old favorite number on it and come up with a new favorite number, a new lucky number for you. The old jersey is going to have your old one. Maybe you put the name of whatever it is or call it whatever service provider or whatever paradigm you’re looking to shift. Go ahead and put that on the jersey, have it printed and then put it in a frame and hang it up on your wall and do a ceremony to let that old persona retire. All the beliefs and all the approaches that came along with that persona get to be hung up and retired so that you can focus on the next level of what kind of opportunities and potential and different ways of looking at things can you step into when you’ve hung up that old persona.
That’s my challenge for you is to write down who was that old persona and what were some of the beliefs that were attached. What had to happen in order for you to be successful with that persona? What had to happen in order for you to spend an hour of your time or half an hour or ten minutes and so forth? What were some of the definitions and beliefs so that you can challenge them and let them go and decide that you’re going to let these go, you’re going to hang up that old persona and you’re going to look at a new way of looking at how you spend your time and energy, where you spend it, what opportunities you’re going to pursue, what types of innovation you’re going to be creating and pursuing, who you hang around with? All of those things get to be challenged and changed so that you can step into your new persona and step into the next level of your life and your business.
That’s what it is for now. I challenge you to spend some time thinking about that. I’d love to hear from you. Let me know what you took away from this and who it is. Private message me or message me on Facebook or whatever. Let me know what this has meant for you to hang up that old persona and step into the new level of who you are yet to become and who you’re going to be in that level. I will see you in the next episode.
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