Focus on What Actually Matters this Year

It's time to challenge the "more is better" narrative.

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Whew! (*sigh*)

We’re on the other side of the end-of-year. A time that looks sparkly and festive on the outside, but actually drives most leaders bonkers with stress.

Budget negotiations, goal-setting machinations, end-of-year performance reviews, team celebrations, all while pushing to hit your annual targets — it’s no wonder leaders leave the season often feeling relief more than joy.

Perhaps one of the biggest drivers of stress is the feeling that you didn’t do enough, didn’t achieve enough, didn’t grow enough. This is often coupled with a stifling feeling masquerading as false optimism that this next year will be “better.”

You’ll hit higher targets, make more money, create more value — be more.

I don’t know about you, but that constant refrain of MORE starts off like an anthem but can, over time, devolve into the drumbeat of a death march.

What if this next year isn’t the year of more?

What if it’s the year of clarity, focus, and intentional subtraction?

What if it’s the year of less?

Every time I gave myself permission to choose “less”, I achieved more.

I confess, I love more. I grew up feeling in my bones that I needed more. More clothes, more friends, more travel, more food. It wasn’t that I didn’t have enough. I did. I just wanted more.

It wasn’t until I had achieved what was billed to me as the top of the job hierarchy after college (Tech investment banking on Sand Hill Road in 2001 — if you know, you know) that I realized that more on everyone else’s terms didn’t work for me.

More hours of work, more multi-million dollar deals, more late nights, more business trips — they not only didn’t match my interests, I tortured my body to force myself to do them. The more it felt bad, the harder I pushed.

Only when I left the finance world and started to work in client success for a small technology start-up, did I realize how choosing “less” could lead so much more.

It happened over and over in my career:

• Leaving a role at a 1000+ person, dysfunctional startup while 6-months pregnant to join a 10-person joint-venture because I was an after-thought in the first vs. an essential leader in the second.

  • Result: I helped launch a grow a $50M business and ultimately became CEO.

• Choosing to take a non-CEO role after my first stint as CEO because I wanted to work with people I trusted and needed health insurance to grow our family (infertility treatments are expensive).

  • Result: I made lifelong work friendships and my daughter was born 9 months later.

• Leaving corporate America in my mid-40s, at the supposed height of my executive career potential, to pursue my 20+ year dream of becoming a coach and artist.

  • Result: I get to spend my days doing everything I’ve longed to do with full autonomy and more creative energy than I’ve ever experienced in my life.

These decisions weren’t all roses and sunshine. But the end result was the same: By getting clear on what I was willing to deprioritize, I was able to make room for what actually mattered to me.

The most surprising outcome?

Once I made the decision on what mattered and what I was willing to let go, everything else flowed nearly seamlessly. What caught me even more off guard was that I was rewarded with far more than what I was seeking.

You can do it, too.
Here’s how.

Step 1: Look Further Ahead Than One Year

Start with visualizing where you want to be 1-2+ years from now.

Ask yourself:

• Who are you in this future moment?

• What matters to you?

• How do you feel?

Don’t overthink it. Trust your initial reactions. Jot it down. We’ll reflect on it in a moment.

Why that far out? Because real change takes real time. Even if you know this is a thought exercise, your brain is going to try to rationalize a response. Don’t. Use the distance to help you escape your current context and the short-term noise.

Step 2: Set Goals — and Anti-Goals

Using your vision as a guide, start to create a map of how you’ll get there.

Make 2 lists:

• Goals: What needs to happen to make your vision a reality

• Anti-Goals: What cannot to happen — this is what you’re intentionally deprioritizing

Don’t worry about timing or too many specifics just yet. This is meant to be a broad outline for now.

Both lists matter. The first tells you where you can focus your attention. The second helps you create freedom and space to maintain that focus without guilt and with more energy.

You know you’ve the exercise well when the first list makes you feel excitement (and maybe a few nerves, the worthy stuff usually does). And the second list should make you feel relief that you get to let some things go.

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Step 3: Less Is Not Laziness — It’s Precision

This next step is a mindset shift.

You need it because you are rewiring deep programming. Even if part of you believes that less is more, more of you will still default to “more is more” as the answer.

Change requires repetition. Every day, schedule 5 min to remind yourself:

• Focus as a leadership advantage

• How fewer priorities create momentum

• Less rushing means more presence, more joy

Adjust the words to make them your own, put them on post-it’s, or use them as a meditation mantra. It doesn’t matter the specific method, it matters that you commit to reiterating it to yourself intentionally and regularly.

You’ll know you’re on the right track when you start to see the shift as not just something that will benefit you, but something that will benefit your team and the people around you.

Step 4: Prioritize 1-3 Goals (or Anti-Goals)

OK, it’s time to translate your vision goals and anti-goals into no more than 1-3 areas of focus for this next year. Ideally, choose just 1 to get started.

Use these questions to help you:

• What is something you can see yourself doing / stop doing this week?

• What will noticeably move you towards your vision?

• What feels more easeful, more frictionless?

Don’t worry too much about choosing the right one. Even just focusing on one thing will be progress. Sometimes the only way to know is to experiment.

Remember, less is more.
It’ll feel like it’s not enough. It’ll feel uncomfortable. You’ll hear an inner voice that will chastise you and make you doubt yourself. That’s a sign you’re on the right track. Hold steady. Don’t give in.

As you make progress, you can reassess what’s next. I prefer 3-month planning cycles. Too much changes too quickly to go far beyond that.

Importantly, don’t feel pressure to add more. If after 3 months, you’re feeling progress, and there is more to do (or not do), and you’re seeing the positive effects, it’s OK to stay the course.

The progress you can make with a singular, consistent focus can be life-changing. Don’t be afraid to give yourself (and your team) the opportunity to experience the full power of less is more.

You can do it!

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
— Hans Hofmann

The first time I did this exercise, I was so consumed by fear of not doing it correctly, the entire point of the exercise was lost on me. But then I tried again, and it landed.

The point isn’t to gain perfect clarity. The point is to give yourself permission to prioritize what matters and let go of the rest.

If this resonated with you, but you’re not sure if you can give yourself the time to go through the full exercise, don’t make this harder than it has to be.

• Just choose one thing that feels obvious and truly matters.

• Or choose one thing that you know isn’t adding enough value or is drain on your energy.

Let one of these these become your goal or anti-goal.

You can do this. You need to do this.
A focused leader is a more strategic leader.

Do it for your future self. Do it for your team. Do it for the people you serve.

I’ll be cheering you on!

May you lead without limits,

P.S. SAVE THE DATE: My next Substack Live is scheduled for next Monday, January 12th at 3:30pm ET with Tom Hardin, otherwise known as TipperX — the most prolific FBI informant in Wall Street history. You don’t want to miss this conversation on Spies, Lies, & Tragedy: How One Leader Survived & Thrived. Download the Substack app to join. (Event link)