"If not now, when?" Look for your niche and build on it. An anti-New Year's Resolution.

When I first started to brainstorm about my first ever blog post to celebrate the launch of my business website, many things came to my mind. Top of the list is an easy winner…. what about New Year’s Resolution? 2020 has been a horrendous year for all of us and everyone is looking forward to ring in 2021 to start afresh, set some new goals, form some new habits, kick some old ones, so on and so forth. It’s a tradition in which we resolve to improve our life and become a better version of ourselves. Even corporations set new goals to kick off their fiscal year and often, forging new paths and new ways of doing things to innovate, looking for new revenue streams. Starting something new is hard, but tremendously rewarding when you achieve your goal at the end. Right?

Something else pops into my head and I thought, “how about an anti-New Year’s Resolution?” After all, 2020 has not been a normal year and we got used to it. Doing something new is admirable of course, but why start only at the beginning of the year? In my opinion, one can do this any day and start something new anytime of the year. The new is now, kind of boring.

Look for your niche and build on it. An Anti-New Year Resolution.

How about giving yourself the added challenge to look for something that you are already good at, and build on it? It might sound like the easier option (at first) than forging new paths. My clients, whether they are individual contributors or corporate teams, are often stumped when I ask them this question, “What is your niche?”, “What are you already good at?” Very often, I get a very long pause or blank look as they try hard to dig into themselves. They are even more shocked when my coaching led them to new insights of what their niche is and realization of how they can capitalize on that unique strength to their advantage to achieve new goals, increase performance and effectiveness.

“If not now, when?”

So there, you have my anti-New Year’s Resolution. The other key point of this first-ever blog post is this: “If not now, when?” This is a saying by Hillel the Elder in Pirkei Avot (translated by Charles Taylor from Hebrew to English as “Chapters of the Fathers”, which is a compilation of the ethical teaching and maxims from Rabbinic Jewish tradition). This is a caution not to postpone any duty. Combining the first precept of “finding and building on your niche”, and the notion of “do it now” to me, is the perfect marriage. After all, the process of finding your own niche in my opinion, is ultra therapeutic and good on the ego. Nothing is better than acknowledging yourself in the process and knowing that you are good at something. Better yet, nothing is better than knowing you already had a good head start, on doing something different with your core strengths.

Now, do not let yourself postpone any longer looking for that niche, so you can use it to create new goals and forge new paths. This is my anti-New Year’s Resolution.

**Check out my new website www.incrementumconsulting.ca and watch out for more future blog posts like this.**