Good morning, Leaders! It’s Friday!

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and after we reflect on what happened over the last twelve months, we watch a 1,200 pound Waterford Crystal ball in Times Square … drop…slowly…for suspense to usher in the new year. Approximately one million souls will be crowding the area to watch, among them a few I may know or even be related to.

After the clock strikes twelve and for those who stayed up might kiss someone close to them, our brains go from in the moment to what happens next; next minute, next day, next weekday.  What resolutions should I make with impossible restrictions that I will be faced with right after the ball drops?

For those writing checks still, you’ll have to remember the new year. It takes me several times before it sinks in. Some call it muscle memory, others call it laziness, still others label it as comfort.

We are talking about more than flipping a calendar here. Change in any form is difficult regardless of the amount of celebration or subtlety associated with it. Being pushed out of the old doesn’t work either. It raises concern and suspicion and triggers our defenses.

New beginnings must be embraced! We have to be pulled forward into the next…whatever. It’s uncomfortable and it’s usually rough and requires vision to shape the unknown into something significant.

In his book, Leadership on the Line, Ronald Heifetz says, “People don’t fear change; they fear loss.” If you agree with that statement than we must all better understand what we think we are losing….while we attempt to move forward.
•Is it identity?
•Is it autonomy?
•Is it our “place in line”?

New beginnings are new opportunities to add to experiences already earned. You’re not losing, you’re gaining.

Find an area of improvement or rededicate yourself to happiness and health for 2017.  Remember, embrace new beginnings.

Have a blessed weekend!