Christmas is over and we are fast moving towards a new year.  Perhaps, like me, you are enjoying a break.  Perhaps, too, this is a time for reflection for you as one year draws to a close and the next, like a blank page waiting to be populated, sits before us.

One man who knows what it is to step boldly forward is David Whyte, who has carved an extraordinary place for himself in the world, bringing poetry to corporate America, where he lives with his wife and family.  I particularly enjoy his recorded talk on leadership, Life at the frontier:  leadership through courageous conversations.

Being a poet, even David’s marketing materials are a joy to read, like the one from which I have taken the extract above.  More than many people, David is willing to penetrate the surface of life to engage deeply with what lies underneath, as he did in the letter to his followers, from which this excerpt is taken.

The passage above was particularly striking because it speaks to something which can both imprison and release us – the stories we tell about ourselves.  Working as I do in coaching partnership with men and women in leadership roles I find that it is these stories, more than anything else, that create the greatest challenges we face.  These stories of the self are particularly challenging precisely because they pass under the radar, unnoticed and unquestioned.  How would we think to do something differently when we think that the actions we take spring from an immutable, unchangeable self?

Often, our stories of ourself spring from our relationship with the world and with past events which have, we believe, shaped and moulded us.  They include a large measure of familial and societal – even workplace – programming, of which we are largely unaware.  We may look to those we lead to embrace change and feel frustrated by others’ lack of flexibility even whilst being unaware of those areas in which we, too, are unwilling to flex.  And yet it is our job to flex and it is our willingness to flex – even our willingness to flex the stories we tell ourselves about who we really are – that lies at the heart of our effectiveness in the role of leader and the ease with which we fulfil our role.

So, as you reflect on the year just gone and look forward to the year ahead, I invite you to consider the questions David raises in the passage at the top of this posting and to ask yourself what one story you tell about yourself – if you were simply to change your story and live life as if something else were true – would most transform your life?

In his letter David tells readers about a change he made in his own story and how it panned out for him.  I look forward to sharing how it panned out for me and also hearing how it panned out for you, too.