Over the past few weeks, I’ve traveled all over the country giving presentations on a variety of leadership topics. As people in the audience asked me questions, I noticed how often they assume they must have new ideas to help them move forward – forgetting that they are sitting on a gold mine of strategies that have already served them well.  Unfortunately, we tend to forget our proven tactics once we move beyond the situation in which we put them to use.   To help you mine and apply your past experiences, take ten minutes to answer these three questions with a specific goal or challenge that is top of mind for you right now:

1. How have you handled situations like this in the past? What worked?

2. What have you already been doing that is working? How can you put that into play more powerfully?

3. Who else should you reach out to for support?

  By answering these questions, you’ll discover that the solutions may be closer than you thought – and much simpler than you anticipated.