Here it is the middle of January already and thoughts of New Year’s resolutions are probably starting to slip away for a lot of people. Most people will want to experience some sort of positive change in their life in the year ahead, but something gets in their way.
That something could be as simple as a lack of clarity; not really knowing exactly what we want. To help find clarity, I ask myself this simple question:
“By the end of this year (2018), what can I accomplish so that I will feel proud of myself and have a truly satisfying year?”
If you stop and really think about that question for a minute, what stands out for you? What stands out for me is that this question points toward three different considerations:
- A feeling (how I can feel a sense of pride in myself)
- A behavior (what I will need to do to achieve this feeling)
- That there’s something important and deeply satisfying about experiencing this feeling
I ask myself this question and then start writing as many answers as I can think of, until I feel a sense of completion with the process. By the end of doing this writing, the foundation of a plan for the year has suddenly emerged on paper, right there in front of me. The plan gives me a sense of clarity about what is important to me, the available options, and in what direction I will need to move. Upon this foundation I create to-do lists that keep me on-track and feeling proud of myself for the choices I make and the things I get done throughout the year.
This is never about creating lofty or unrealistic goals. It’s about keeping things simple and basic. It’s about becoming aware of what is truly important to us. It’s about figuring out and knowing what options may be available to us, even ones we didn’t think were possible before. It’s about giving ourselves a chance to figure out the baby steps we need to take each day toward creating a life that will truly satisfy us. It’s about considering the long-term (big picture) while making progress in the short-term here and now. Ultimately, this process is about creating a compelling vision of the future, a picture in our mind of a life that we will love, and defining actionable steps that we can take toward making it a reality.
Now the thing I’ve pointed out here in this post is how a lack of clarity can be a potential obstacle for success with our resolutions and plans for the new year. However, there are other obstacles to success that we will need to consider, but that will need to wait for future posts. In the meantime, are you willing to ask and answer the question:
"By the end of this year (2018), what can I accomplish so that I will feel proud of myself and have a truly satisfying year?”
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