Happy Friday and welcome to the last day of February. We are wrapping up another month of the year. February is such a fascinating month. It is the shortest month of the year, the only month that changes the number of days every 4 years, and a month home to Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day, and President’s Day.

February is an early litmus test for the rest of the year. We discover we are reaching a new operating rhythm and executing at a higher gear, or we realize we have settled back into the habits we wanted to break, but haven’t figured out how. If you are on the former path, keep pushing forward. If you are on the latter route, your job is to break out of Groundhog Day.

As in the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, no one knows they are in an infinite loop except you. We’ve all been that person who sees everyone else is just going through their routines of a staff meeting, a weekly business review, and merely rinsing and repeating. It is called reliable and consistent behavior. If things are working, you may not need to say anything.

On the other hand, that mentality will not work for long in a world of accelerating change. Soon, things break. Then, repeating the same actions in an infinite loop and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. In the movies, you are in a time loop where the world stands still. In the real world, you and your team are in your loop while time moves forward and the world progresses.

When you are in a Groundhog Day situation, you must assume that you are the only person who realizes you and your team are in an infinite loop. Since no one else knows, it is incumbent upon you to speak up, make changes, and snap out of the situation. You and your team didn’t fall into a loop knowingly, so breaking out of it will take effort. You’ll want to shake up your routine, break repetition, force novelty, change the format of meetings, and navigate conversations to a different altitude.

While we usually laud reliable and consistent behavior, those actions may also drive monotony, reduce creativity, and put us into Groundhog Day. When that happens, break away from “reliable and consistent.” Find joy in serendipity and spontaneity. Innovate, iterate, and embrace your “variable and inconsistent” actions.