*This blog is partially highlighting Sticker Mule, a company we use, as a sort of sponsored post, just wanted to put that out there*
As previously mentioned, we love themes instead of new years resolutions. Themes give you a much better chance at success in making your life more of what you would like it to be over the course of a year. But how do you keep it up? You must think about it and revisit it regularly. As a team, we talk about it weekly at our staff meeting. As a person, I have a reminder in my task manager to make time to work our on our big annual projects every other day.
So far we are doing great. We have hit our executions for that theme for January. Most of these things will not be known to the public but it will be important to us.
But I also believe that making an idea visual – making it be available to be seen in places that will make it help stick and become part of your vocabulary and your daily operating system of life. One of the ways I frequently do this is by changing the background of my phone lock screen. I put inspirational or challenging messages here regularly to help remind me to work harder. Our process theme is captured in the quote by Richmond sculptor Elizabeth King: “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.” With some hand-lettered art by local artist, Maria Stewart, we have made that a cell phone background here.
But we also had stickers made by Sticker Mule that we have given to our team. I am putting them on places like my laptop, which is a place I can not help but see it everyday:
If you want to make an idea work, you have to be persistent about it. Revisit it often, evaluate what it means, and spend time implementing it. Two books I would recommend on making ideas happen for your team: Traction (Wickman) and the 4 Disciplines of Execution (McChesney, Huling, Covey).
Also, be sure to expose yourself to it all the time.
A great way to do that is with a sticker. Sticker Mule also has some new tools to make stickers easier to make if you don’t have a graphic design team on standby: Trace, Upscale, & Redraw. These tools can help you take your idea and make into reality (the reality of a sticker of course).
Even if you see an idea every day, without action, it will remain a simple sticker, or a few lines of text, and fail to become the life-improving concept that it could be.
