Not a resolution!
As I mentioned just last Friday in the Weekend Reader, I have never been a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. This make sound strange coming from a “personal excellence” advocate. I’m not against resolving to change for the better, nor do I deny the strong image of a fresh start the New Year brings.
My philosophy has always been that every day is a good day to resolve to be a better person. I think personal growth and fundamental, sustained personal change is a year long commitment. Unfortunately, while we all have the best of intentions, I think it’s fair to say that most New Year’s resolutions are quickly forgotten.
Why the dismal track record? Personally, I think there are two reasons:
- We make our resolutions as part of the ritual of the holiday, not as part of a personal growth strategy.
- Our resolutions are not connected with purpose, nor is there coordination between our resolutions and what we really want to accomplish.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit to historically not being a planner, and have long scoffed at those people who tout their “3-5 year plans”. It’s taken half my life, but I’ve come around to the concept and this year I decided not to make resolutions, but to start thinking through some life and goal planning and personal growth strategy elements. I’ll have to admit, this story about a Harvard Business School study that I linked to in a past Weekend Reader helped push me over the edge. (The punchline being ten years after the 1979 MBA class was asked whether they develop clear, written goals for themselves, the 3% that did were earning ten times the other 97%.)
But, as I’ve said before, I’m kind of an 80/20 guy and I like things kind of simple. Plus, if I was going to do this, I figured having my own approach to my goals might help my commitment level. After the jump, I’ll show you what I came up with.
So here it is. I’ll admit, this got put to paper in about 10 short minutes, so take it for what it’s worth. Again – I wasn’t interested so much in something comprehensive or flashy, but something that hit all the areas of growth I wanted to focus on, and a general framework to make everything work.
The rest of this post, I want to briefly cover each of the planning steps with why it was added and how to approach it. I’ve linked the image in case you want to print it out.
Reflect
Time to be honest with yourself and look back on the previous year. What did you do well and where did you fall short of your goals, your dreams and the kind of person you want to be? The purpose of this exercise is not to beat yourself up, but rather a simple, honest appraisal of how you spent your year to feed the planning process of how and where you would like to grow in the coming year. Key: be honest; don’t beat yourself up.
Celebrate
Before you start the planning process, take some time to celebrate all those positive things you accomplished in the previous year. Celebration means lots of things to different people, so do something that is special to you, whether that’s a quiet prayer of thanks or a trip to the spa. Whatever you do, make sure it reinforces the growth you’re celebrating. Key: reinforcement through celebration; don’t just use this as an excuse to buy a new pair of shoes.
Now starts the planning process. For me, I’ve split it into three areas: Personal, Professional and Karmic. Each area has a few focus areas identified.
Personal
Personal relates to how you want to grow and what you want to change in your personal life. To me, this means how you feel about yourself, how you feel and relate to others, and being a positive force in the world.
I’ve included “short-term” and “long-term” to allow for priorities and growth that will simply take longer than a year to accomplish. We all have growth issues and priorities that simply require focus and reinforcement to become ingrained habits. However, we also have new paths we want to walk down and longer term, more fundamental changes we may want or need to make. Key: how do you want to grow personally?
The areas I’m focusing on personally fall in three categories:
- Personal Growth – What do I want to change about myself? How do I want to grow? Do I have any new personal priorities?
- Family and Community – We all know families can be a… “challenge” at times, but you only get one. Do you need to fix something in yours? Community means the world at large that you interact with every day. This could be your church, the service personnel you interact with daily or your neighbors. Is there any way about your dealing with the world at large that you’d like to change?
- Fun – Ask yourself the following question and be totally honest: “Are you having fun?” If the answer is No or something like, take some time to think through why, then add some priorities to your plan to change. Life is supposed to be fun folks.
Professional
By professional, I am speaking to the time you spend at work. Now “work” means different things to different people, and for many of us, the line between personal and professional is often very gray. I think professional should be fairly obvious, but if you need a definition, let’s say this is the area of your life that generates income. Key: how do you want to grow professionally?
As above, I’ve included space for both short-term and long-term considerations.
Professional also has three categories I am focusing on:
- Depth – Do you know your job inside and out? How could you increase your expertise and value? Are you considered an expert?
- Breadth – What intangibles do you offer your employer? Are there areas you would like to grow into?
- Polish and Promotion – A Van Gogh is no less a masterpiece without a frame, yet none would argue that the right frame can add immensely to it’s presentation. Likewise, a Van Gogh hanging in a room that no one knows about is certainly a waste.
Karmic
I wholeheartedly subscribe to the notion of Karma. Call it what you will, but I believe the lives we experience are in some part determined by the lives we lead. “Determined” may be too strong of a word for you, but this is concept is a strong driver for me and an obvious third area of focus personally when thinking through yearly priorities.
Karmic priorities run the gamut from how we relate to others (positive attitude, kindness, tolerance, etc.) to what we give back (charity, willingness to help, etc.) Key: decide what you want, then give that in spades.
I won’t belabor this point as it might not be a priority for you.
Focus, Monitor, Reward, Stretch
These four ongoing activities are meant to help drive and track both my commitment and focus on my plan throughout the year. For me, simply writing down my priorities in a summarize manner and checking in on them every once in a while is sufficient. For others, they may need a project plan, metrics and specific tasks to check off. Whatever works for you, the intent is:
- Focus – making sure you are committed to your plan
- Monitor – actively gauging your progress
- Reward – positive reinforcement for milestones reached, or change/growth ingrained
- Stretch – going above and beyond your plan (where appropriate)
Key: develop a way to keep yourself focused and on track.
Last Words
So there’s my brand new, year-end planning process. I threw it together rather quickly, but the more I’ve worked with it, and the more I’ve thought about it, the more I like it. I’m sure I’ll tweak it here and there, but at least I’m started on my journey of serious personal development planning.
Take this “framework” for what it is; maybe you like it maybe you don’t. If it fits your life and your priorities, then feel free to use it if you think it will help motivate you to do some overdue planning.
If you’re a longtime pro at this sort of thing, then I’d be very interested in your strategy – what kinds of tools do you use, if any? What areas do you focus on? What drives your process and how do you keep yourself on track?
Finally, one last wish for a safe, wonderful, excellent 2009!
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
It just proves to me that my serendipitous approach to life may require some reflection. Damn those planners. It explains a lot though. I enjoyed the post and the thought it provoked for me.