Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2024. I hope you had a chance to relax and recharge even a little bit over the holidays and that you've entered the new year with a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm and hope.
Lots of people ask me if I believe in New Year's resolutions. What I believe in is setting intentions. It’s a great thing to do at the beginning of the year and actually at any fresh start moment throughout the year. But, January is the ultimate reset. Setting intentions or goals can be very energizing and focusing. It can help shape your time and decisions and experience for the year. So I encourage it.
There's a lot of ways that you can set goals for the year. Here are a few ideas to consider:
SET CONCRETE GOALS
One strategy that works extremely well for many people is to generate a list of very goals you want to accomplish by department of life on a single page. For many, many years, I favored this approach—I would sit down in January, write down very specifically what I want to accomplish in each area of my life. What do I want to accomplish in the business this year? What do I want to accomplish as a parent? As a friend? For my health? In my home?
I'd have specific things I want to accomplish, and write them down on a single sheet in January, and keep that at the front of my planner. To tell you the truth, I almost never looked at it all year long. And yet, inevitably in December, I would pull that list out and look at it and lo and behold, I had achieved 90% or more of what was on that list without looking at it all year. That is the power of intention. It concretes focus.
NAME A THEME
Another thing that you can do is to name a theme for the year. This is much less specific and much broader than a list of concrete goals. It;s a decision on a broad experience or focus for the year. Maybe you want 2024 to be a year of adventure, or a year of connection, or a year of self-expression, or a year of better boundaries. If you just name one singular focus for the year, it will guide you in all sorts of decisions, choices and activities as you progress along the year. . It's only one thing to focus on–and because it is broad, it is less intimidating and kind of hard to fail.
CREATE A GET BETTER LIST
I’m personally taking a new approach to intentions for this year, which is to identifying just a couple of areas of life where all I want to do is to get better at it. There are so aspects of our lives we’re managing at any given time—there's sleep and exercise, nutrition, relationships, money, leadership, parenting, decision making, organizing, time management. We are living in a time of extraordinary advances in research, knowledge, and thinking for each department of our lives–I want to take advantage of that to refresh and fortify my habits and practices ina couple of areas. Instead of trying to master anything completely, just aim to get better in a couple of departments of your life. You don't have to be a disaster at what you are trying to get better at.. Maybe you’re pretty good at money, but you want to get better at it. Maybe you are pretty good at relationships, but want to get better at it. The idea is to pick a few areas you want to get better at and then throughout the year, gravitate toward articles, books, podcasts, conversations with people to get better in a few areas of your life.
We can all get better. That is a goal and an intention for the year that I am sure if you write it down and you focus on, you will claim victory in December.
Happy New Year, and I look forward to being on the journey with you this year.