2024 Ponderings on Success

New Year’s Eve was truly an exciting night!  Over a million people were in Times Square in New York City, crowded, cramped, cold, and excited. The ball dropped. The fireworks were heard. Confetti was everywhere. You woke up on New Year’s Day and uttered: “Well, it’s here!”

Have you welcomed 2024 in with a flourish or are you like so many people who don’t make a big deal about the new year? They have no rituals, no SMART goals, and no direction. They are, once again, on a boat with no rudder. They wonder why there is all the fuss about New Year’s resolutions.

There is so much buzz from family and friends about their resolutions with the primary one being focused around losing weight and getting into a better, healthier lifestyle.

What’s the big deal? Why bother with resolutions when 87% of the people who set resolutions break them before the end of January? Are all those people who vow to change their lives with the birth of a new year better off than those who don’t?

Rules, regulations, suffering, and goals; it’s all too complicated! You look at various areas of your life and determine the area that bothers you the most because you have either done nothing to monitor that area like your money, your health, or even your spirituality, or that area is so out of control, and you haven’t the slightest idea how to reign things in.

Setting resolutions requires you to choose an area that needs the most improvement, and then you proceed to set up strict rules for making things better. You create “rules” and if you’ve had any training on SMART goals, you need to make those rules measurable with a “how much” by “when” approach. What are you willing to do regularly to improve that area of your life? How often will you work on it? When will you be done? How will you determine your success?

It sounds organized and practical. You finally have a system for improving your life. It’s the beginning of a new year and you are convinced that THIS time you will be successful. After all, a new year gives you, yet another chance for a fresh start. Your determination is palpable. Shades of The Little Engine Who Could ring in your ears: “I think I can, I think I can, I know I can, I know I can.”

You become excited and believe you can do anything you set your mind to do. Alas, although you are off to a good start, as the end of the month approaches, you have already set your determination aside and moved back to your comfort zone that has no room for all that organization. The rules are too restrictive.

Perhaps you could modify your approach and not try to do too much. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Work and family obligations got in the way of your completing most tasks, but you can always try again tomorrow. Can’t you?

Trust me, if you are a person who sets goals for the year and sets goals for each area of your life and you have been successful, please continue to do that.  Being happy with your success is a wonderful motivator for more success to come in.

If you know how to set SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely) and you have enjoyed success through that method, keep it up. If you have found systems that work for you to help you gain success in any of the areas of your life, I recommend you keep doing them.

What can you do if you have never had success keeping resolutions or setting goals? I’d like to offer you three suggestions that may be a different approach: something new that may help. You have nothing to lose by trying something new.

First, let’s look at the major areas in your life that support you. Let’s take the top six. There are more, but using the top six will get you started. Picture your life as a pie cut into wedges. Each wedge represents an important area of your life that supports you and helps you move toward success.

The areas are Love and relationships, Health and Exercise, Religion or Spirituality, Education,  Physical environment, Job and Finances. These six areas are the foundation that supports your life. If, for example, you are starting to feel like things are a little off, look at that area in your life and put more energy into it.

Let’s say you pick the area of education. You don’t feel like you have been moving forward in that area, enroll in a class and learn something new. You will then start to feel more balanced. Reviewing the different areas that support your life regularly is important. We often put lots of energy into the things we love most and very little effort into the rest. Have you spent countless hours at work and put little time into keeping your relationships whole? The “Pie Slice” approach is a simple, straightforward approach to improving your life.

Another approach that will move you forward is the “5% Rule”. It is a simple approach toward bettering yourself in every area of life.  Many of us don’t move forward because we feel it’s too overwhelming to aim for success. Where can I begin? How can I devote all my time to making my life better? It may seem so daunting that you never begin, at all.

Let’s look at another area in your life that often comes up as a problem. So many people talk about how clutter has taken over their lives. Their physical environment is so out of control that they waste an enormous amount of time looking for their car keys or an important invoice that they need to return an item they purchased. Clutter can be pervasive and over time, it robs you of time, money, and even friends.

With the “5% Rule”, you devote 5% of your day, each day, to work on cleaning up your environment. 5% is just 72 minutes each day to pick up, organize, or throw away those things that no longer serve you.

What would your life look like if you just devoted 5% more time to making it better? It would be so freeing just to know that when you need something in your house or office you would be able to easily locate it because you have consistently put it in its “home” location. The car keys are always in the basket by the front door. Your glasses are always on your nightstand, your invoices are placed into folders labeled by month.

Rejoice in all the free time you would gain – time you could use to enjoy family and friends rather than search for your keys.

Lately, I have been hearing and reading about consistency as a powerful force toward success. Several authors have written books about how to bring tremendous success in your life by committing to doing small acts every day rather than setting huge goals for yourself.

These tiny, consistent habits, over time, bring success, lasting success. Let’s say that in 2024 you finally want to start living a healthier life. You are struggling with the “Covid-19” weight that you have gained and your inactivity.

In order to create a small, powerful habit that will put you on a healthier path, you decide to get back on the treadmill. The “old” way of creating a habit is to set a lofty goal such as walking on the treadmill for thirty minutes a day. Week one of the New Year, you may last, but as we know, by week four, 87% of you will have already kissed that treadmill goodbye!

If you take the approach that you will start small, (really, really small) and you do it every day you will develop a habit that will last for life. Going back to the treadmill, plan to just get on that treadmill for five minutes a day, every day. You will find that by the end of January, you will feel better, and you will have developed a new habit for life. You may have even added some extra time on the treadmill in small, incremental amounts.

But… we are all human, and humans are motivated by rewards. We go to work to be rewarded with money. We did something difficult, and we celebrated by going out to dinner. We do well in school and are rewarded with good grades. Rewards are key and so is celebrating.

When you pick a new habit to work on and you do it every day, you must reward yourself for doing it. This reward must be planned out carefully. You don’t want the reward to be something that defeats the purpose of the daily habit you are building.

For example, you don’t want your reward for going on the treadmill to be a sticky bun! Perhaps, you can check off the day on the calendar after you have gone on the treadmill. You can stack the rewards and after so many checks you can reward yourself by making plans to hike with a friend.

Make 2024  a year filled with successes but do it by finding a simple way to which you can relate that will help you develop lasting success one tiny step at a time! Take back your power and free up your time so that you can be more successful and reward yourself with the gift of being the best version of you that you can be.

As always, I’m rooting for you!

Angela I. Schutz

Driven to Succeed Consulting LLC

www.driventosucceed.net