Annual resolutions: Take a step back to go two steps forward

Do you have a goal you wanted to achieve by the end of the year? In the last weeks of the fiscal year, often a lot remains to be done. Again and again I observe a kind of race shortly before the end of the year. Reaching your annual goals quickly, closing a deal quickly. And every time I ask myself. Why? What is it about the date December the 31th? Will the clocks be set to zero and everything that has not been achieved so far will no longer count on this day?

What is important when you have a goal in your mind? Keeping it to the timetable? Sometimes! Not being discouraged, even if that means detours? Definitely! Learning with every mistake? In any case!

Your own schedule, your own focus

So why not use the time before the end of the year to slow down? Annual financial statements are important, that is clear to me. But is it really worth it – now, a few weeks before the end of the year – to finish all the things you haven't done in a whole year? Wouldn’t that be "under selling"? It might leave everyone a bit dissatisfied and under the impression that everything could have been even better with a bit more time to invest.

I live the "game of opposites" myself: If it's particularly hectic and loud around me – like in these weeks before the magical last day of the year – I become quite calm. The more hectic, actionistic and unfocused my environment becomes, the more I come into my focus.

Gaining distance

For me, it’s quite clear: I can only recognize what is important to me, if I gain distance from the daily routine and the hectic little things. This has become a routine for me. I do this regularly when I notice that I no longer act self-determinedly, that others drive me or that I start to pursue the goals of others instead of my own. Then, I consciously get out, (re-)collect myself and I become the driver of my goals again. I call that willpower, what means to me: gaining distance, rethinking goals and pursuing them with the necessary implementation energy.

Accepting challenges, achieving goals

If you know who you are, what you stand for, what values you carry within yourself and, accordingly, what you really want, it is no longer an active process to face new challenges and consistently pursue a goal for you.

In my eyes, it is important that challenges should be tackled when they arise, not postponed – not to the new year, the next month or even just the next day. Take them on to a self-determined way and don't let yourself be influenced by others.

Imagine instead of being stressed you fall into a year-end idle state and adjust your goals at the end of the year – so that projects and plans can be continued in a fully focused, agile, coordinated and persevering manner in the coming year. Your deadline is not the first of January, but YOU ALONE determine when you start to follow a new goal, a new challenge. Why not today?

Keep on punching!

#resolutions #definethewho #facethechallenge #willpower