Remember waking up on New Year’s day and having all those good intentions to transform your life with a set of goals and resolutions that would totally allow you to become a new person in some way, versus all the previous years?
The way you know you are going to wake up 365 days later and be a whole lot richer, thinner, happier and more successful.
If only we could stick to those resolutions, hey…..
I have always been an advocate of setting personal and professional goals as it allows you to focus on personal development and learning, rather than just a sense of drifting along and New Years resolutions are always an apt time to get stuck into some action points of the long stretching year ahead.
However, I fear I am facing a U-turn on what has been my mindset for almost 20 years in that I don’t think I actually believe in New Year’s resolutions anymore – something I have been debating internally all year long….. and in fact as we head into the latter part of the year, it is even more prominent in my mind that my conclusion is- New Year’s resolutions suck.
Why do we set them in the first place?
My cynical answer is that it is the done thing to do: every magazine, website, blog, and employer will have a predictable “Let’s set some yearly goals” and I was definitely always guilty of this.
I would set myself goals in the following areas:
Health/ fitness-related – However, as I am now at my fittest the last few years it was about maintaining my levels and weight as opposed to changing anything- so does that satisfy the definition of a goal?
Financial – As I am self-employed, my goal was always centred around revenue I generate through Qui Recruitment; there may be other goals such as investments and insurance policies- however, those are often “booked in” for annual revenue during the year around their renewal dates so not something you should ignore or wait until 1st Jan for?
Home – Having recently bought a new house in 2018 due to my divorce, this made a mockery of previous years where I would focus on one room renovation as a yearly goal. As I have learned over the last 12 months, you do what you can, when you can afford it and when you want it to happen!! And often you have to work around the specialists who are doing the renovations as everyone knows al good decorators are booked up months in advance
So do you see my point? The premise of New Year’s resolutions is to give you a fresh start and focus to your new year. However in business, we may write a years business plan but we will review it quarterly at the very least- we will amend areas that have changed and rewrite the goals accordingly
Instead of New Year’s resolutions, why not write a list of what you want to actually achieve right now, at the moment, and learn to become more receptive to opportunities as they happen, becoming more pragmatic and intuitive in how you live your life.
We live in an ever-changing world where the pace is getting faster and the parameters alter more frequently.
Or am I wrong and actually, just because I have experienced certain life events over the last 2 years which have made me live my life a little more freely mean that I am a fool?
