Are you a New Year Resolution or goal setting person? As an alternative, I am allowing myself three best hopes for 2022:
My first best hope for 2022 is to find my waist again.
For me, this is a metaphor representing appearance, weight, health, and quite honestly, probably many more things too.
What could get in the way? There is so much narrative around this:
- It gets tougher as you get older. Probably true, but presumably also not impossible.
- You need a BMI of 20 -25 to be healthy. I guess so. This doesn’t inspire me to action though.
- It’s about reducing refined flour and sugar from your diet. There does seem to be some evidence for this.
- Exercise is the smaller part of the solution. Probably true, but being more fit for my sea swimming and cycling would be good too.
- It’s too late to do anything substantial about this. This one feels particularly pernicious. It is probably as true as I let it be.
Why do I want to go the best hope route?
A best hope is something I can curious about. I can pay attention to the best emerging process, as well as final outcomes. I can talk about my experience to fine tune it (that always works for me!), and team up with others too.
Curiosity keeps me inquiring, researching, in dialogue and seeing what is possible for where change might be.
My second best hope for 2022 is adventurous travel.
After travelling within Mexico two years ago, I had hoped to take my beginner Spanish to Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Maybe this will be possible in 2022; however I think I will wait and see how things pan out with the pandemic.
So, although my dream is or was to go to South America, I might need to look at alternatives. For example, Sicily is appealing, with history, volcanoes, the sea, cuisine, climate and culture.
Could we get there in our Motorhome? Could we make this a really great adventure?
Allowing myself my best hope, I can get curious about my best alternative, rather than settle too low.
My third best hope for 2022 is for a really strong Women in Transport Lead alumni to develop.
Our third programme starts in January, with more planned for April and September. Lead is a big part of my work. I would like us to deliver all of our promise, not only to ignite the confidence of senior women in the transport sector to reach their full potential during the programme, but for participants to become an amazing resource to each other over the course of their subsequent careers too.
Acknowledging this influences my mindset and allows me to take action now. I can be proactive in how we run the programme, so that participants genuinely want to commit to and take part in the alumni when it ends.
Recently I facilitated an Away Day for a Senior Leadership Team and asked everyone to check in at the start with their Best Hope from the day. Someone said for them, this was the same as their expectation. At the end of the day, they were big enough to say it had made a huge difference for them shifting to the mindset of best hopes. It engaged their emotion and energy in a different way, allowing them to create and participate in different conversations, enabling more fruitful outcomes and team performance.
How can you engage your emotion and energy in a different way to shape and move towards your best hopes in 2022?
Best hopes are an important part of the Solutions Focus approach to change. I trained with Dr Mark McKergow, and it has become an important part of the way I work. If you would like to know more, this video also explains the Best Hope question well:
Gill How loves to work with managers, executives and professionals to help them to evolve, stretch and grow their leadership capability. She is a Master Executive Coach and innovative Leadership Developer who works both internationally and in the UK. If she can help you with your Best Hopes for 2022, get in touch!
The third programme of our Women in Transport Leadership Programme, Lead, starts in January. Here is what a participant from a previous programme has to say:
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Photo credits: Hernan Pauccara and Martin How.
