Spring Is Here! Time for an Internal Spring Cleaning?

It’s that time of year again where we put our affairs in order and “start fresh.”

We put away our winter coats, give our homes a big spring cleaning, make sure our taxes are squared away, and get ready for a new season of warm weather and new expectations.

But while you’re busy tending to your home, your taxes or your yard, are you doing an internal “spring cleaning” as well?

Because as important as it is to tackle the external spring cleaning tasks, it’s just as important to take stock internally. Why? To see where you are, where you’d like to be, and if the pieces are in place to make this happen.

Let’s Do a Little Personal “Spring Cleaning”

Mental “cobwebs” can be holding you back from achieving your goals. Why not let the fresh warm breeze and sprouting greenery motivate you to do a little mental spring cleaning? This will help you identify where you are on your path to greatness.

Find a spot where nature can inspire you and take a few moments to sit down, break out a pen and paper and consider these all-important questions to make sure your house is in order – inside and out.

Who / What Inspires Me?

Instead of revisiting what you want in terms of success, revisit who you’re modeling to achieve this.

Are you still mirroring these traits?
Are there new traits or models that you should consider imitating?

Make sure all the qualities you admire are still in check, and start adding or innovating new qualities if you’ve mastered the traits you admire the most.

Also consider in addition to who inspires, what inspires you?

Does visualizing yourself achieving your goal inspire you to keep working toward it? For example, if your goal is to lose 20 pounds this year, does visualizing yourself looking great, feeling energetic and sporting new, smaller-sized clothes inspire you to skip the donuts in the break room and go for a 10-minute walk instead?

What Are My Opportunities?

When was the last time you looked around — really looked around — to identify any new opportunities that are not just within your immediate reach, but hovering just over the horizon?

Hopefully, this is something that’s always on your radar, but if you haven’t been paying attention amidst your daily work and responsibilities, now is a good time to refocus.

Look at both the immediate opportunities as well as the not-as-obvious opportunities. If you know the opportunity is there, now might be the time to jump on it before it passes you by — or it might be time to begin positioning yourself to be ready for a future opportunity.

For example, if your goal is to become the top salesperson in your organization this year so you’ll be well-positioned to apply for a promotion when it comes along — or even go out on your own — what are you doing to improve your sales skills? Reading books from top salespeople, attending seminars, taking a course?

Remember, it’s not enough to have a goal — you have to take action to achieve that goal. We talked about this in a previous post, “Are You Taking Decisive Action to Make Your Dreams a Reality?”

What Are My Positives?

Unless it’s something you’ve been naturally able to do or have trained yourself to do, you know that thinking positively all of the time can be challenging. But you can rise to that challenge!

Negative Thinking Is the #1 Thing That Prevents Us from Achieving Our Goals

Sweeping out negative thoughts and replacing them with positive ones is the best thing you can do to achieve your internal “spring cleaning.”

Start by asking yourself, “What are the positives in my life right now?” Then start considering the negatives in your life and find the positive realities of every seemingly negative situation.

This can take some time, but they do exist if you know how to look. For more help on this, check out our earlier post, “How Can I Find Positives in Negative Situations?”

An internal “spring cleaning” can be a hard thing to do — maybe you’ve strayed off your path and don’t know how to get back on — but that’s why it’s so important to invest a little time doing it.

“We are used to cleaning the outside house, but the most important house to clean is yourself – your own house – which we never do.” – Marina Abramovic (artist)

And guess what? Just like how good and refreshed you feel after your house and yard has had a good spring cleaning, your mental outlook will feel fresh and optimistic too! And that will enable you to start marching forward on your path to greatness.

Want to learn more about how to achieve the most out of life and become the winner you were meant to be? Then WINology – World Class Performance is for you!

Have you ever done an inner “spring cleaning?” Let us know what you “swept out” in the comments section below!