What will your 2021 NY Evolution be?

For over 20 years I've been studying #tenfolders, i.e. people and organisations that have a disproportionate (atleast 10x) impact on the world around them compared to their peers.

Rarely do tenfolders do one thing extraordinarily well. Their success and impact is much more likely the result of a range of daily #mindframes and #habits consistently applied over time. The best news is that...

anyone can develop the mindframes and habits of tenfolders.

Creating a New Year Evolution is one of the habits I discovered about 10 years ago from a range of tenfolders such as best-selling author and happiness researcher Gretchen Ruben (pictured with Oprah below), 4 Hour Work Week guru Tim Ferris, wizard-philosopher Dr Jason Fox, and many others.

The notion is simple... the impact can be remarkable!

Every year pick a word or phrase to guide your decisions and actions for the next 12 months.

I call this a New Year Evolution becuase the word(s) chosen is designed to challenge and direct you to be a better, more evolved, version of yourself.

There is a whole bunch of science behind this approach you can read about here, but the underlying premise of this approach is that no matter what happens to us we always have a choice about how we respond.

Your New Year's Evolution becomes the filter thru which you both interpret and respond to the world over the next year.

"Examples please Rich" I hear you say.

Ok here are mine from the last six years. If you'd like to read more about why I chose each NY Evolution and the research underpinning them please click on the links below.

• In 2015 my evolution was 'turn around'. 
• My New Year's evolution in 2016 was 'positive change'.
• 2017 was 'step up'. 
• My 2018 evolution was 'take the shot'. 
• 2019 was all about 'living exponentially'.
• And in 2020 it was 'generosity & generativity'.

I cannot overstate how much these words miraculously manifested in my life in each of the years I chose them. Or maybe these words chose me. I don't know. As much as there is deep science behind this approach, there is something meta-physical about it too. The impact this practice has is as positive as it is profound.

2020 put this approach to the ultimate test. Between the fires in Australia and COVID19 this year certaintly threw a bunch of stuff at us all we weren't expecting.

Due to COVID lock downs and restrictions my work as a high performance psychologist speaking and facilitating at conferences and executive offsites shrunk by about 50%. However in the midst of the first wave an opportunity arose to launch a new and complementary business. It is early days but over 500 CEOs and executives are already involved and we are growing every week.

One of my favourite features of the new business is directly related to my 2020 New Year Evolution. Each partcipating company nominates a charity to receive free access to our organisation's leadership development experiences with global thought leaders and national influencers.

Charities, especially smaller ones, rarely can afford the time or money to invest in their leadership capability. We thought it would be a small way we could help make a difference to a sector that makes such a huge difference to so many in need.

Through this initiative we have met many remarkable leaders. People like Aminta Conteh-Biger (pictured above) who is the CEO and Founder of the Aminata Maternal Foundation providing support to women and babies in Sierra Leone. Her book Rising Heart is life changing.

They say "words create worlds'.

My 2020 NY's evolution may not have created a new world but it has certainly changed mine by prompting numerous ideas, launching a business, and renewing and creating friendships and partnerships that will hopefully last a life time.

So what is my NY Evolution for 2021?

LEVEL UP... inspired by High Performance Habits best-selling author and researcher Brendon Burchard (pictured above with Larry King and the Dalai Lama), i.e. seek to take everything I do to the next level.

Doing so consistently and in alignment with my greater purpose will accumulate and hopefully result in a much bigger impact on those around me next year. Bring it on!

So... what's your New Year Evolution? I'd love to hear about it.

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I am the CEO & Founder of Tenfold Australia. Our company name reflects our purpose to tenfold Australia’s impact for a better world. We will primarily do this by scaling the success of global companies with operations in Australia and New Zealand via their participation in an annual program of executive development forums.

Tenfold Australia also helps companies and their people create high performance cultures, scale their leadership impact, and find growth from disruption via keynote speaking, facilitating workshops, individual and team executive coaching, designing and analysing bespoke culture and climate surveys, developing cultural transformation maps, and online leadership development.

I am a leadership, change and high performance psychologist. My insights are based on real world experiences from his work with 50,000+ leaders and over 1,000 CEOs, underpinned by my knowledge as an organisational psychologist and expertise as a change agent supporting organisations for more than 20 years going through major transformation.

For more information please go to www.tenfoldaustralia.com or www.richhirst.com or contact me via email on [email protected]. For daily leadership tips on LinkedIn search for #tenfoldtips.

Please find below links to my previous monthly posts.

1. Remember the people behind the politics
2. You are stronger than you think
3. 5 ways companies get culture wrong
4. Why we do dumb things and how to stop it!
5. How is your 2020 vision?
6. How to be the best of the best and 10x the rest
7. 10 career lessons I learned the hard way
8. Don't make this high performance mistake in your company!
9. 7 Tips to World Class Performance
10. Winning in the turns
11. The #1 predictor of career success is not what you think
12. Don't die with your music still in you
13. Blasters, badmouthers, bottlers, brooders and builders. Which one are you?
14. P.S. I love you
15. The great change trap-eze!
16. What is your New Year's Evolution?
17. How to lead when change is NOT constant
18. All good things must...
19. This choke point may be slowly killing your company
20. Australia: The distrusting country
21. The most damaging four letter word to use at work is @#*!
22. Finding your moonshot
23. Sleeping your way to the top
24. How to supercharge your influence
25. How to be a master of mental Aikido
26. Time to terminate HR?
27. Too busy or not too busy. Is that the question?
28. Who inspired you in 2017? My top ten!
29. The missing link of high performance
30. The future belongs to people with this skill
31. Lessons from loss
32. Good Grief
33. 20 reasons why corporate wellness programs get sick
34. Australia is still lucky... but for how long?
35. Change management has become a joke!
36. Are you ready for the third age?
37. What matters most in a post-truth world?
38. Never waste a good crisis
39. Your best bet yet for a year of success
40. What will your New Year's Evolution be?
41. Are you ready for the 'gig economy'?
42. Are you working with an energy vampire?
43. From counting people to making people count
44. Five novel tactics for better leadership
45. Mid year reviews: Ubiquitous but ridiculous
46. Talent pipelines are broken
47. Australia: The innovation immigration correlation
48. Time to reimagine HR
49. The secret to successful disruption: The innovation colony
50. How to survive and thrive in the supermatrix
51. The biggest predictor of career success is...
52. The secret to high performance is not what you think...
53. Where are you on the digital vortex?
54. Diversity does not equal inclusion
55. How to catch and hold the rebound expat
56. The e-factor is the new x: the ultimate growth multiplier
57. Are you working with a waste of space?
58. Iron Man needs you!
59. Collaboration: the new super skill
60. Leading innovation from the Australian subsidiary
61. Insurgent or incumbent: the key to a future every company wants is...
62. Why the talent war is over
63. How 'the other GDP' is causing a talent crunch