As we sit here at the edge of a new year, I want to talk about why I believe New Year's resolutions are a setup for failure and what I'm going to do instead to create real, lasting progress. I want to read to you a short post by Seth Godin called Clear Ice that he published on November 8th of this year. He said, “I love Zamboni machines. They're ungainly, they're slow, but they're also majestic, like an elephant for ice hockey. After each period, when the ice is chopped up by play, the Zamboni rolls out and leaves behind a sheet of perfect ice, cold, smooth, and untouched. It's useful to acknowledge that the same service is offered to each of us every night. We wake up in the morning with a freshly smoothed-over day in front of us. Our intentions determine our first few moves. The way we engage with today's ice and those moves often lead to the next ones and so on and so on until the day is over. Add up enough clear ice days and the pattern becomes set.”
Isn't that a great thought that every morning we have a fresh sheet of ice. As entrepreneurs I think it's harder to get into that mindset because we live our lives on a 12-month calendar. We pay taxes based on how we did this year, this 12 months. From a business perspective, we can make changes all year, but when we're sitting here at the end of the year, it only makes sense for us to be excited about the clean sheet of ice that is before us each January 1st.
So, where do you start with resolutions? I believe New Year's resolutions set us up to fail because we make all these big changes that we want to happen in our year and many of them get broken in the first month then we're defeated and we go back to our old ways. I want to share with you five things I'm doing right now to set myself up for even a better year next year.
- Year-End Gratitude Reflection
I love to start here. I don't only focus on the good things that have happened this year, I also look hard for the failures I had in the year and how they were wins instead of failures. It helps me express gratitude for the things I've learned. My failures have always been the best teachers for me. I
- Set a Word for the Year
This word will be my intention and focus for the upcoming entire year. The concept is that if we pick a word and we use that word as a filter for what we want to accomplish, we will be sitting here talking a year from now, having made substantial progress on the thing that is important in our life.
- Going into Creation Mode & Dreaming
The way that this comes together for me is through a physical vision board. When I'm in vision board creation mode, I ask myself, what do I want this coming year in all areas of my life? I put this into categories like personal things, business things, family, faith, health, travel, mentorship, etc. I bring these visions to life by either cutting out images that represent them or often I will draw and paint them.
- Focus on My Health
Last year, I had a skiing accident and I tore both of my MCLs. This accident put into perspective for me how important health is. For the last year, I've also been working with a nutritional doctor. I'm taking the prehab versus rehab approach.
- Family First
This year, my family focus has shifted from traveling to sporting events to really pouring into my kiddos. This year, Katherine and I got to go to Portugal together with a photography group that I'm in. And she came to one of my mastermind meetings in Nashville, Tennessee to hear a top social media strategist speak because she's doing that in her career. I love being able to take my young people to educational opportunities. It's a different kind of family first for me, as my kids are done with the college phase and they're building their adult careers and lives. I want to make sure that Joe and I have time to do things together so it can really strengthen our marriage and us doing healthy things together is really important to me.
This year my word of the year is “focus”. Getting back to the really important things for me that I wanna focus on. Take some time to really think through what you want in your life over the next year and then go make it happen for yourself. Choose your word of the year. Create your vision board and let's get going. Progress not perfection.
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