Thoughts to Inspire You on to New Starts

Ah, January! New beginnings swirls around, a halo of good intentions infused with promises of weight loss, increased exercise, new jobs, higher salaries, new relationships, healthier eating, fresh snowfalls, and new outlooks on life.

Whether 2014 was the best year or the worst year of your life, you have no choice but to press on into 2015 and something “new.” New can be exciting or new can be scary. If you don’t feel as intoxicated and inspired by all the “new-ness” around you, here are a few new thoughts to ponder:

1. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Seneca

Allow yourself to mourn “some other beginning’s end.” Even if you despised your old job and old boss, you might still mourn the people with whom you worked. Feel the loss of what you knew, and then move forward to greener pastures.

2. “Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.” – Demosthenes

Do you feel the energy in a new task? Could it signal the greater opportunities that could be just on the horizon? You might not know it now, but the new assignment you just received—that no one else wanted—could be the door opening to something amazing that you had never considered. Be open to small opportunities.

3. “Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” – Nido Qubein

Where you are today has no bearing on where you will end up. Today, you might work in the mailroom, but you can end up in the boardroom. Everyone starts somewhere. Some of the greatest, smartest, richest and most memorable people in the world had ugly beginnings or had to re-start many times over.

4. “You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“I can take the next thing that comes along.” Say it. Own it. Let it sink into your soul.

5. “The truth will set you free.  But first, it will piss you off.” – Gloria Steinem

Funny? Perhaps. You made a poor hiring decision and now you have to fire the new hire that has only been there two weeks. Okay, get mad at yourself. It won’t solve the problem, but let the anger run its course. The truth–and the subsequent firing of the employee who didn’t work out or the job you quit because it feels all wrong—will set you free to move on to bigger and better opportunities.

6. “A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.” – Melinda Gates

Give yourself some quiet time everyday this year. Promise that you will listen to and find your voice. Speak out for what you believe and other women will follow. The world needs more strong women wearing sharp heels.

7. “Just because you are CEO, don’t think you have landed. You must continually increase your learning, the way you think, and the way you approach the organization. I’ve never forgotten that.” – Indra Nooyi

Water your own garden. Grow. Complacency equals neglect. Learn or do something new just because you can, even if you are the CEO, especially if you are the CEO. If you want to be the CEO someday, learn even more. If you work in marketing, try approaching a problem from the perspective of the bean counters in finance.

8. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot

Whether you are 26 or 62, it is not too late to become the person you always knew you could be. What “might have been” is far more terrifying than the path to change is. Making one small change toward becoming what you might have been means you are already different than you were yesterday.

9. “There are pros and cons of experience. A con is that you can’t look at the business with a fresh pair of eyes and as objectively as if you were a new CEO. Fire yourself on a Friday night and come in on Monday morning as if a search firm put you there as a turn-around leader. Can you be objective and make the bold change?” – Andrea Jung

Look at your career, your life, your relationships with a fresh set of eyes, as if you are a consultant assessing the situation. What do you see differently? How would you advise someone else in your shoes? Never allow experience or longevity to create stagnation.

10. “You are confined only by the walls you built yourself.” – Andrew Murphy

Whatever endings, beginnings and middles happen in your life this year, nothing stands in your way save what you, yourself, put there. You are hereby free to move about your life.