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Senior Correspondent

An employee frustrates the heck out of you. Wish you could start over? Your boss drives you crazy. Wouldn’t it be nice to start fresh?

What’s stopping you from starting over? You!

Start over – 5 ways to address the past:

  1. Identify frustrations and name failures. Ignored frustrations always escalate.
  2. Accept their weaknesses.
  3. Take your blame. What role are you playing in the problem? Rest assured you are. Employ honest outside eyes for this exploration. You can’t do it alone.
  4. Forgive. Act without failure or offences in mind. Forget forgetting, you can’t.
  5. Believe failure in one area isn’t failure everywhere.

Bonus: Start over by leaving the past in the past, at least for today.

See more key elements to starting over from Facebook contributors.

Starting over – 10 ways to address the present:

  1. Start with now, not with then.
  2. Employ forward-facing language. Stop bringing up the past.
  3. Define success. Undefined wins can’t be won. What does a winning relationship with your boss look like, for example?
  4. Begin with small wins that energize more wins. Small is the path to big.
  5. Define what you’ll stop doing.
  6. Visualize positive behaviors before they’re needed. If this happens, I’ll ______.”
  7. Practice positive interactions with trusted advisors.
  8. Ask, “What would I do if my next meeting with ‘Mr. Frustration’ was my first meeting.”
  9. Focus on behaviors not feelings, at least for today.
  10. Realize the key to starting over is your attitude and response to failure.

Yeah but:

I hear you thinking, “Starting fresh won’t eliminate old frustration.”

A series of small wins may eliminate the need for “perfect” solutions. Additionally, starting over provides positive energy for addressing negative history, when the time is right.

Free yourself from the past, just for today. Turn forward. Stop pushing back, controlling, and fixing. The path to the future begins by starting over.

What prevents leaders from starting over?

What “starting over” tips help you?

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