A Bright, Shiny New Year

As I was working on my annual plan for 2017, my daughter asked me why I spend so much thinking time on planning my commitments and aspirations (others call them resolutions) every year.  I told her if you don't set priorities, how do you know you're spending your time on the right things?

I love the feeling of a whole Bright Shiny New Year stretching out before me filled with possibilities and opportunities.  I love the luxurious feel of thinking about how best to use that wide expanse of time.  New Year's is my favorite holiday, in fact.  Not for the party scene but for the pleasure of this process.  I tend to start the process by setting a theme.  An overarching idea that encompasses and unifies the individual goals and aspirations.  

Last year the theme was "More" as I committed to finding ways to say "yes" to more things and enlarging my span of impact and influence.  This year the theme is "Integration."  By Integration I mean having seamless transitions and flow between all aspects of my life - removing all barriers that consume time and energy with no value.  

Once the theme is in place, I begin thinking about the individual Commitments, the things I am committed to accomplishing or doing and Aspirations, the results I will achieve through my Commitments.  I believe the reason Resolutions have a bad rap and a high failure rate, is because most people focus on the outcome first - I want to lose 10 pounds or save $10,000 or improve a relationship without thinking through the actual changes they will need to make to achieve them.  The first focus should be on the inputs - the things you are actually Committed to getting done.  Going to the gym 3x per week or cutting out the weekly Amazon purchases or spending 30 minutes every day with your spouse after dinner to reconnect.  The Commitments are what you are going to do.  The Aspirations are the whys.  

I think the other reason for the high failure rate is that most people make a big list without first having an Accountability system in place.  How do you know you are keeping on track if you aren't monitoring your progress?  People don't track out of the gate, get too far behind and give up before January is over.  Having your Accountability process ironed out starts before you even set your first Commitment.  I have found that this annual process has actually strengthened my ability to hold myself accountable in all areas of my life.  Discipline is like a muscle, you have to work it to make it strong.  Start small if you need to with a small number of Commitments.  You can add more once you have improved your ability to be disciplined in what you are setting out to do. Large Commitments should be broken up into daily or weekly goals.  If you can't break a goal up into smaller bite sizes to track, the likelihood of falling off plan is high.  

There are a lot of tools and techniques to use that can help with transparency and accountability.  These apps are great for transparency - the key to accountability. I have tried many.  The one I have settled on is Strides.  It is a great app - flexible enough to track all sorts of Commitments - time-based, numerical, etc. It is also easy to use with a beautiful UI.  I have it on the home page of my phone and iPad.  I start every morning by marking my performance against my Commitments.  

And 2017, this Bright, Shiny New Year is off to a great start.