There is nothing quite as refreshing as beginning a new year. It's kind of a magical time for me. The down time that I have the week between Christmas and January 1 has always been precious. I suppose it's mostly because the rest of the year seems like such a blur, but that one week of stepping away from the day to day work activities provides so much clarity and creative inspiration.
Because I'm not a big fan of end of the year recaps or top ten lists of stuff we did, or looking at the past in general, I will not be putting you through any of that with this post. Even though we accomplished a lot of great things in 2009, met many good people and worked with some fantastic clients; I, like a few million other people will enjoy watching the last year of this decade slip quietly into the past.
What I do love most about this time of year is looking to the future! Imagining that there is a blank slate and anything is possible. Coming up with all of the fun and exciting things we'll be doing and talking with others about what they have planned. Every year I go out to the office supply store and get a fresh, clean legal pad to write down all of the things I want to do or try, or get better at doing. I write and write, and eventually a pattern emerges of how I would really like to live my life from that point forward.
So many events can distract or derail our efforts during any given year. External things that we didn't ask for or invite. Situations that are beyond our control or comprehension. People move, get married, change jobs, lose jobs, die, have babies, break down, become famous, lose friends, retire. We had plenty of external distractions last year, but one thing that helped tremendously was to have that written plan in place to be our guide.
I would really encourage anyone to take a few hours to actually write down what you want out of life. Don't type it, don't email it to yourself. The process of writing your own thoughts on a piece of paper with a pen is an experience that seems much more real, much more personal and possible than just tapping out some words on a keyboard. Draw pictures, doodle around your notes, make it about you.
This doesn't have to be formal, that's boring. This process should be inspiring and exciting. To really boil down to what it is I am interested in accomplishing over the next year, I typically start with a blank sheet of paper and at the top write "I WANT". Yes, it's a selfish beginning, but what it allows me to do is think for a moment only about results and outcomes, then I can later fill in the blanks exploring what work I would actually have to do to reach those results. It's at the point where I see most of the dots connected that I can decide if that thing I think I want is worth having.
People often confuse creating goals with making new year's resolutions. I don't make resolutions. I'm terrible at resolutions. Goals are things you want to make time in your life for so that you can accomplish them. Resolutions on the other hand are the way that your guilty conscience will try to create a goal out of an activity that you feel deep down you should have been doing all along. Even though it's an activity you never really wanted to fit into your life in the first place. That's a recipe for failure and failure is not much fun for anybody.
Look out soon for the latest on some cool stuff we are cooking up this year. Heck, I might even blog more, though I have to admit that is not on my goals list for 2010.
Pipe up. Leave a comment!