What if the only thing standing between you and the growth, joy, and success you desire is… You?

Everyone has inner parts of themselves that sabotage, distract, and create self-doubt. I’m not sure who originally coined this, but these parts of us are often termed “saboteurs” or “inner critics.”

Once you learn what yours are, and what they look or sound like, you’ll start to recognize when you’re standing in the way of achieving your own desired goals.

“Execute with urgency.”

“Deliver with agility.”

“Bias to action.”

You’ve probably heard some version of this sentiment in your work life, as modern businesses have placed increasing value on speed. This is for good reason: we know that many industries are “winner take most,” and whoever builds that competitive moat first can come out on top.

But what if I told you that many modern companies miss the point completely? What can you do to model true speed and to help your team do the same?

If you don’t recognize that symbol to the right, you are (perhaps) among the lucky few. The icon is the “message waiting” indicator for the very popular workplace collaboration tool Slack, and it’s been slowly killing me.

Along my coaching journey I’ve come across a bunch of tools designed to help a coaching client to see their situation differently than they do naturally. There is immense power in altered perspective, and it’s one of the reasons that coaching works so well—most people naturally see things the way they see them, and that’s not always what is needed.

One such tool is called the “Wheel of Life” (pictured below). As I was playing with this tool myself, I wondered: why couldn’t this be used for work?

Well, I think it can, so I created my own version and I am going to share it with you here.

You’ve heard the saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Or maybe you’ve heard the more modern version spoken by Morpheus in The Matrix, “I can only show you the door, you’re the one who has to walk through it.”

Opportunity abounds, and you face choices every single day about how to invest a slice of your time in walking through one of those doors. But… Which one should you walk through?

Any door. Literally choose any door. You ready?