Every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.
– “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman
Many people make New Years Resolutions. These are plans to improve themselves within the next year. For many, it becomes cliche as people often make them and break them as soon at the year begins.
These could include losing weight, quitting smoking, quitting drinking, being a better worker, make more money.
All may be good ideas, but it relies on follow through.
For me, I do not usually make specific resolutions. I do like to assess what has happened and make goals for how I would like to see the next year go forward.
For assessing the last year, I read a very interesting way of doing it from blog-god and author Tim Ferris. I am including it below as he shared it, because it is a great assessment.
For next year, I cannot express it any better than the song A Million Dreams as seen above. We are amazing creatures living here on this planet earth. And our minds have endless potential. Its about putting those dreams into action.
So I say, keep dreaming and keep making those dreams come true.
Happy New Year!
Tim Ferris’ New Years Resolutions
I’m often asked about how I approach New Year’s resolutions. The truth is that I no longer approach them at all, even though I did for decades. Why the change? I have found “past year reviews” (PYR) more informed, valuable, and actionable than half-blindly looking forward with broad resolutions. I did my first PYR after a mentor’s young daughter died of cancer on December 31st, roughly eight years ago, and I’ve done it every year since. It takes 30-60 minutes and looks like this:
- Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
- Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
- For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.
- Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
- Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2019. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.
That’s it! If you try it, let me know how it goes.
And just remember: it’s not enough to remove the negative. That simply creates a void. Get the positive things on the calendar ASAP, lest they get crowded out by the bullshit and noise that will otherwise fill your days. Good luck and godspeed!