Think about “old conversations” as the messages you send to yourself and others, that don’t move things forward. They are often accurate and can be proven to be “right”, but they don’t make anything happen. These conversations are old. Not in the clock or calendar sense of old, but old because they don’t create a new possibility for things to be different.
Sometimes we have these old conversations with ourself and we don’t even know we are having them.
The first step is to replace these old conversations it to acknowledge when you are in an old conversation.
Let’s take an example common to many – “there is not enough time in the day”. That may be true but where does that get you - usually to a place where you didn’t accomplish the goal you wanted to accomplish because there wasn’t enough time in the day?
Step two is to decide if you are willing to let it go. That’s not as easy as it sounds. These old conversations are comforting – and after all, we’re right, so why would we want to let them go? The answer is “because it’s not getting you anywhere.” Using the example of “there is not enough time in the day”, if you let go of that old conversation, who or what would you blame for not getting done what you wanted to do?
The last step is to replace the old conversation with a new one. This is not about hopes and dreams, it is about possibilities – something that has a chance to move things forward.
What might a replacement look like with our example? Here is one possibility: “Today, I am going to focus my time on my top priority and get that done.” No guarantee that will work, but it is more likely that it will work than the old conversation that guarantee’s it won’t.
This approach can make a big difference for you – and when a team goes through a process of identifying their shared old conversations, it can change everything.