Lean Your Way To Success

Early in the New Year, many of us are looking to make a major shift in how we do things.

It could be improving our job performance, relationships or just our weight (I am still paying for my love/hate relationship with Christmas cake…).

Reality is, unless we have a serious issue, a major change in our behavior is not always the best or most successful way to make a positive difference in our lives.

Going from zero to a jogging five kilometers a day, switching cold turkey to a vegan diet or trying to dramatically change your approach at work can cause a lot of stress and will often ultimately lead to failure.

Rather than make a dramatic change, most experts suggest that you do it gradually. Want to lose the weight that you gained over the holidays? Don’t become a vegetarian, just cut down on the some of your less healthy choices. Want to be in better shape? Start walking more and work up to some light exercises.

In our professional environment, making sudden changes in how we do things can cause more problems than it solves. If you have decided that you need to increase your visibility in meetings, interjecting in the discussion every couple of minutes can change your reputation from being a wallflower to someone who is highly disruptive.

Want to be considered more innovative? Suddenly starting to propose every idea that comes to mind can give you the reputation of being unfocused.

My bet is, you are already pretty successful at what you do. If you want to take your performance to the next level, making small incremental changes will help you more than making major ones.

To increase your visibility in meetings do your homework beforehand and have a few well thought out points to make when the right time arrives.

Want to be perceived as being more innovative? Come up with a list of ideas and pick the best one or two to propose and develop.

If you have serious challenges and need to make a major change either personally or professionally, get serious support, map out a plan and take it one step at a time.

If you are like most people, are already successful at what you do and want to take your performance to the next level, my suggestion, lean into it.