Last updated on 8 December 2020
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Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier. – Alfred Lord Tennyson
New Year’s resolutions for me are usually as thin as paper. By the end of January my resolve to do big things with my life usually cracks like ice on a pond in spring. I often resurrect them with new fervor at the end of summer, when the kids are returning to school and I’m naturally reflecting on the passage and events of the past few months. And, inevitably, about December 30, when we are about to turn the page on the year just lived.
So I am finding it ironic to be exercising my brain to develop both personal and professional plans that in some counterintuitive way will lead to unusual success. I say counterintuitive because I tend not to plan but to do things in the moment, use my internal compass as a guide as to where to head next. Elin, my wife, calls me “Scatter” for a reason and though she means it affectionately, I fear it is a true reflection of how my mind works.
“Oh, look a squirrel!”
Ha-ha.
For reasons about which I can only speculate–and I don’t want to devote too much brain power and tax my progress because it feels like my compass is pointing in the right direction–I am fixated on planning for the next year. Actually laying out specific tasks with deadlines. It feels..weird.
New Year’s resolutions work like this: you think of something you enjoy doing and then resolve to stop doing it. – Charlie Brooker
It feels so unusual, so unlike me, that I suspect all this mental activity is just as ephemeral as any other year. Yet it is the inkling that there may be something to this planning stuff that seems to be enough at this point to make me commit to seeing how it plays out.
Elin has gone through a process of visioning for years. For her, writing specific desired achievements on a specific timeline and using language like “By the end of…I will be” or even stronger: “I am now….” have led to fulfilling achievements. And I’ll be damned if she has ticked off every single prophesy she devised for herself, both personally and professionally.
It kind of pisses me off. In a jealous way.
“Why can’t you do that?” I ask my brain.
“Go away,” my brain says. “Oh, look a squirrel!”
In the past couple of days I forced myself to shield distractions and devote focused energy to thinking about what I want. I know it would be foolish to ask too much of myself, but from what I’ve read if one doesn’t have some big goals–even the kind that feel a little out of reach–one winds up achieving almost nothing. Goals end up on the trash heap of so many New Year’s resolutions.
Why do we put pressure on ourselves this time of year to resolve to do great things anyway? Why does the turning of the calendar from one year to the next have to signify anything other than the need to replace the calendar magnet on the fridge with a new one?
I find all this planning intimidating. Like I might actually have to commit to getting away from my seat-of-the-pants living and be accountable for doing or not doing. What I’ve done for all my life has worked just fine after all, hasn’t it?
Well, no, otherwise I wouldn’t be talking to you and sharing my dilemma.
I have to admit that this year, unlike in years past, the voice that says I’m shortchanging my life is loud and clear.
So here’s what I’m doing: I’ve produced a Google doc in which I’ve written specific goals and a timetable for achieving them. I’ve borrowed Elin’s language to state the goals as if it’s the end of 2019 and I’ve already achieved them because that’s what all the experts who tell us about goals say to do: “I’ve written 1,000 blog posts and now have 25 followers” and “I am the most loved and respected Realtor® on Argyle Crescent.”
I’m sharing my real estate business plan with my real estate coach who is there to hold me oh-so-accountable to what I’ve dreamt up. The coaching platform for planning is all online and it has a nifty format that takes one through specific real estate-related activities to which one can return to keep on track.
A great start, wouldn’t you say?
So far I’ve developed a theme that includes most of the important areas of my life: health, finances, creative, real estate, and relationships. In the next few days I intend to write specific statements under each heading about what I want those things to look and feel like by the end of 2019. The experts say it’s like creating a route on a map. You’re supposed to print out your goals and post them somewhere visible, a place you can see them everyday. But that won’t go over too well in my house because we also have a design aesthetic that eschews clutter.
Me: “So in working on my visioning I need to put up a dry erase board next to my desk in the addition. And I have to post some sticky notes affirming my goals on our bathroom mirror so I can see them twice a day”
Elin: “Uh-uh.”
Me: “I promise it will be a really cool dry-erase board.”
Elin: “Nope.”
She’s right. The dry-erase board would be an eyesore in no time. I’d probably end up doodling on it or writing some Pinterest- or Instagram-inspired Buddhist quote.
“A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step…”
I could get away with stickies on my computer. Maybe I’ll print my Google doc vision and read it to her before she falls asleep tonight. After all, it’s New Year’s Eve and it’s a great time for resolutions.
