The economy may or may not recover this year.  The Drachma may or may not maintain parity with the Deutschmark. The USA may or may not say ‘Yes’ to Obama.

One thing is certain though:

Our personal, commercial and future prospects this year will be influenced more by what goes on in the 7 inches between our left and right ears than what goes on in the outside world.

Business will be done. Profits, bonuses, reputations and futures will be built. Ours is in our hands.

When it comes to what goes on between our left and right ears we must avoid the self delusional self talk of Steve Coogan’s Gareth Cheeseman in the classic “Dearth of a Salesman” episode. We are not tigers, no matter how much we shout ‘Grrrrrr!!!!!’ into a mirror.

We must manage our Self Talk

Self Talk is that constant dialogue that goes on between our conscious and subconscious mind.

Its roots are many and varied. Untamed, it can result in short attention spans, inability to focus, lack of clarity and control, stress, procrastination, urgency addiction, Continuous Partial Attention, which is NOT the same as multitasking.

We can manage this through deliberately working on our Self Talk (what we say when our mind talks to us and what we say when we talk to our mind).

Arguably we cannot claim authentic influence and leadership of people until we claim it over ourselves.

We must weld our purpose to our priorities

Peter Drucker famously said that the preferred management style is Firefighting and most managers are arsonists. We must overcome Urgency Addiction and the ruthless reality that ‘Just in Time’ is really just too late and unsustainable when working through people.

We need to create habits, rituals, processes that are simple, robust and flexible enough for us to clarify and control our competing priorities within our demanding days.

 In short we must manage our Self Talk and be Doers of Dreams.

These are the things we all need to be working on every day as we go about our day-job. These are the things we need to be deliberately learning and growing through. These are the things I get out of bed for and what I love working with my clients on.

Speaking about getting out of bed, here’s a simple ritual I run before I plant my feet on the floor first thing in the morning.

Over to you. You are a Doer of Dreams …. What habits, rituals or processes work for you? Drop a note in the comments section below.

If you or your team could use some practical support in managing Mind Traffic, purpose and Priorities just get in touch. I’m confident that, together, we will produce results worth talking about.