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New Year’s Resolutions

Every Year is a Great Year, Some Are Just Greater Than Others

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And What Makes a Year Like 2020 so Great?

Some people would argue that there was very little about the year 2020 that was great. 2020 was certainly not what I expected or had planned for. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t great.

Often, when asked how my day’s going, I will pause briefly, review the day and answer, Good, but then…

Every day is good. Some are just better than others.

While writing in my journal yesterday morning, I was enjoying the fire burning in the wood stove as I looked out at the falling snow. It was so peaceful and quiet. I don’t think life gets much better than this.

Not everyone would agree with my assessment of the snow. This is fine, we are all made different. The important thing about any situation is to look for the blessings. Just as some are not fans of cold and snow, I’m not a fan of heat and humidity. But in every situation, I work to find things to be thankful for.

The focus of this journal post was my annual life planning. Reviewing the past year and looking forward to the new year. As I thought about the coming year, I wrote…

2021 is going to be a great year, but then…every year is great. Some are just greater than others.

As I wrote this, I realized that this mindset was the same years as it was for days.

The new year is a natural time for stepping back and reviewing the past and planning for the future. It’s common for new year’s resolutions to be made and then be abandoned once the busyness of our daily lives takes over. This annual process is great, but it needs to be done more often if it’s going to be anything more than a fleeting resolution.

It needs to be done more often than just annually. It also needs done quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily. This is hard to maintain. We get into daily routines that become weekly, that become monthly, that become quarterly and the next thing you know another year has gone by.

We look up and realize we didn’t accomplish the things we wanted.

Several years back I broke my year down into these smaller increments as an effort to not loose track of my year’s goals. It worked really well until the past few years when I gradually neglected to keep it up. It’s up to me to not let this happen.

This is where my need for focused intensity comes in.

I have control over a limited number of things, but those things are directly connected to how great this new year will be.

Things I can control:

  • What I say yes to
  • What I say no to
  • My schedule
  • My attitude
  • My perspective

I’m going to be intensely focused on my plans and the choices I make in 2021. This will make it a great year. Breaking the mountain down into shovel size amounts makes it movable.

As I review 2020, what made it great?

  • I joined a mastermind group. Never before had I done anything like this. The friendships, personal growth and opportunities from this have been life changing.
  • The personal and business connections from this mastermind opened up the opportunity to take a digital marketing training that have expanded my abilities and skills for growing my business.
  • Substantial business opportunities that have and will come from these connections
  • Opportunity to build an audiovisual booth in the sanctuary at church without causing disruption to worship service during the weeks we didn’t have live worship.
  • Our Pastor’s willingness to start recording, broadcasting and sharing his messages virtually when we weren’t having live worship. (We had been trying to get him to do this for a few years.)
  • Realization of how fortunate I am to have a loving family that is close both emotionally and geographically.
  • A clearer understanding of who God made me to be and the skills I have and the opportunity to help others with them.
  • The fact that I’m alive and haven’t completed the work that I was put here to do.

2020 was a great year, but then…every year is great. Some are just greater than others.

Here’s to your having a great 2021!

A New Year, A Clean Slate

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Why Did the Turkey Cross the Road?

 

It’s just a few days until the start of a new year. This start represents an opportunity for new possibilities. The thought of this can be exciting. The chance to do better…to be better. This is what encourages us to make ‘New Year’s resolutions’. The process of making resolutions and failing at them over and over, makes us hesitant though. Most of the time people give up on resolutions after a few weeks. Only about 8 percent of people that make resolutions will stick to them. Most resolutions are really good, and if kept, would make us better.

 

Okay, so if the possibilities are exciting, we want to be better and most resolutions are admirable, why don’t we keep them?

 

I think most of the time it is the lack of a clear plan. It reminds me of some wild turkeys that were crossing the road near my home. There were fifteen or twenty birds going across as I approached them in my truck. Some continued on across, some turned and went back, but one couldn’t decide which way to go. It ran back and forth going in circles in the middle of the road. This indecision and lack of clarity put this bird at risk of failure…and in this case, failure could have been really bad. Good thing I was driving slow.

 

The first thing to do is determine WHY. WHY do we want to accomplish this thing? The WHY will be the motivating factor. The WHY gives us the reason to move. For example, WHY do I want to cross the road?

Next we need to know the HOW. The HOW gives us the map from here to there. The HOW gives us a direction to go. Now I know HOW best to cross the road.

This is where things begin to get tricky. There are a lot of different systems that you can use for this. The problem is that what works for one person may not work for another. I have used several, some I paid for and some were free. The conclusion I have come to is, it matters less what the system is and more about whether you use it or not. You have to move or you will be left standing in the road.

Currently I am using parts and pieces from Michael Hyatt’s, Five Days to Your Best Year Ever; Donald Miller’s, Creating Your Life Plan; Andy Andrews, The Seven Decisions Perpetual Calendar as well as things I have designed myself. Each year I modify and tweak my system so that it works better for me. Every year I schedule time between Christmas and New Year’s Day for working on my Life Plan. Scheduling it on the calendar is critical to being intentional.

The plan needs to look back at the past to see what worked and what didn’t. It needs to look to the future to see where we want to go. Most importantly it needs action now. It also needs a way of measuring progress so you can see how you’re doing. Resolutions are only as good as our actions. Like Ebenezer Scrooge in the Christmas Carol, we have to decide to be different if we’re going to be different.

Don’t be a turkey. Make a plan before you start across the road and stick with it. Don’t stop in the middle of the road. You can continue to improve on the plan every day if you keep moving.

MAKE A PLAN AND GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD!