Things that mattered the most in 2023.

This year just flew by, marked with many things to remember, reminisce, and ring a bell before we step into 2024. ?

1.????? Change is the new trend.?We often change our style, dressing, colours, food, patterns to the ongoing trend. 2023 was all about digesting the hard fact that change is the new trend. From now onwards, we should say?what’s changing instead of what’s trending. The year taught us to embrace change in many ways from geopolitics of growing localization of a new kind, policies emerging and some stuck in the system, position countries and companies are taking around the war, places being moved as corporates tilt base to de-risk their value chain or move states to house their head offices in a less polluted cities, perception to build the new perspective for driving crisp narrative from country name, GDP, AI or technology.

?2.???? Rise above.?It doesn’t matter what role you are in, it’s about what role you play. The changing times are demanding and testing times. You can’t afford to look up to your seniors or company board or politicians for guidance. You must rise above the change to challenge it. Whether in life or corporate hierarchy you maybe, make efforts to do your bit. The test of your character is in rising and not depending on things to guide fate. Lead self, lead others, lead your organisation, and lead in the changing world, to make a difference.

?3.???? Expect the unexpected.?Events of the recent years have shown that unexpected things are bound to happen. Many events will come without signal and warning. Despite training, risk planning or all preparation, you as a leader will be hit by unpredicted times. So, brace yourself to rise to unexpected, with confidence, empathy, and most importantly aligned with your vision, anchored in values, and encouraging for your fellows to support. Be all into it, with all by your side.

?4.???? Be an ambassador. Champion a new cause to help further their mission. Ambassador programme can be immensely benefit you to new learnings, network, and perspective. The process will make you rich in experiences, knowledge, skills, and storytelling. This year I became an ambassador for IKEA Foundation to learn how IKEA’s vision is reaching the many people and helping them fight climate change. Look around for opportunities to enroll and be a champion for a cause.

5.???? Emotions need spirits.?Emotions are good but not enough?to navigate into the future. When the world (this could be company, studies, career, home, etc.) is in turmoil and going upside down, to cringe is folly. You must sharpen your spirits to read the surroundings and act. Don’t be silent by your emotions, instead let your spirits move you into a new direction. A friend, losing hope of a changing job, kept crying and talking ill about her employer for months. Making the workplace and home toxic for those who didn’t lose anything. Plus, making her not so attractive for new employment prospects. After coaching, she redirected energy in creating new networks, reapplying, and relooking all her options. Soon she landed a new role. Everything moved on her side when she acknowledged her emotions to cheer her spirits. Classic case of ‘you get what you give.’ Days of emotions are passé.’ Spirited vigor brings new hope.

6.???? Content in context.?You are the start and end of everything you can achieve. When you succeed or fail, it’s all your efforts or capabilities. What changes in every situation is how you mold yourselves to new surroundings – adapt and adjust. So, it’s you as content and the world as context.?My philosophy is define yourself as good as new in every changing context?– for the story to be all yours. If times change- you change, world evolve- you evolve, work progresses - you develop, just don’t stop!

7.???? Cultivate leadership mindset.?Endless talking about growth or performance mindset won’t help anymore, it is time to move towards leadership mindset. Don’t set your mind on anything but impact and don’t just lead but lead with leadership. To cultivate a lead with impact mindset, you must take collective action to raise the stake – building trust (in you, your team, unit, function, or organisation), moving business forward (Chalta hai attitude won’t do, do more than required), and demand and deliver excellence. Demonstrating what you expect from others will guarantee progress of a new kind, that is leading with power of impact to harness true leadership mindset = growth and performance.

8.???? Try someone else shoes. Sometimes we miss the spark in our daily life or work. Instead of ignoring it, acknowledge that it may be a sign to try something new and add that zing. How about shadowing someone else in their role to realise the importance of yours. The itch to change your job could be a call to reinvent it or do it in a new way. I shadowed a few of my colleagues last month to realise the importance I can play in my role to help them achieve new heights. Don’t go shopping for new shoes, just try wearing someone else for a day. I bet you will love yours back again.

9.???? Outside-inside. Getting trapped in your perspective is a recipe for disaster. Devote time to tune with outside-inside view. Be it a newspaper, podcast, music, poetry, forum, painting, event, or book festival. Allowing space to see things differently will refresh your lens and drive you forward. I personally spend 1-2 days each month in workshopping, visiting external forums, meeting industry peers, writing, teaching to learn new things and being in audience before I get to the stage. This allows me to make room for agility and speed.

10.?? Quality matters.?Quality is a prerequisite no matter what your business is. As a consumer we demand quality, as a company we focus on quality. But what about as an individual? The quality of your actions to deliver, lead, care, contribute, play or be a team player. Just doing is not sufficient, the quality of your actions will define the standard of efforts. If you develop quality in your actions as a habit, and work towards self-star rating to continuously improve, good things and time will follow, year on year.

What defined this year, will also define next. So, cuddle these things tighter than you can. ?