Dear 2015, while I am eager to see you leave, I at least owe you some thanks. So thank you for the priceless lessons you taught me about living, which is really about about faith, family, resilience and gratitude. I like who I am and where I am today better than who I was and where I was a year ago.
Dear 2016, any chance I can get extra credit for 2015 so we can we just skip the whole lessons learned thing this year? Yes?
First of all, I loved this post. Yes, 2015 was a tough year for Russell and like many of us, I'm glad he is through it. I also wish that I could have done more to help him. But one thing this post made me consider was all of the thought we put into the first of the year. Like everything else, it comes with its good and its bad.
In terms of the good, many of us use this as a time to reset. In the next few weeks the gym I use will be absolutely packed with people who made a New Year's resolution to lose weight, or get healthier - whatever the goal may be. This is a time to quit smoking, or any number of healthy challenges. Like I said, it's a really good time to reset. And I hope that for everyone who sets a plan for the first of the year, this is the most successful attempt you've ever made.
But, and here comes the Jim part ... why is it that the first of the year holds such a magic? Why could we not use the 12th of April to think about things for the upcoming year? What is it about January 1 that has such a grip on us?
I've talked about will power and the fact that it actually is an exhaustible resource. The book I read talked about will power and self control as something you have a limited amount of. When you start using it - it will run out. Then, it takes time to rebuild your reserves back up. The author explained that this is why diets fail. "Change is hard because people wear themselves out." We start strong and when our will power fades, we are right back where we started. It isn't laziness, he says - it's exhaustion. (Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath)
So what should we do with all of this? I have a thought and I think that it's a good one. I think we need to slice the time that we have into smaller segments and allow ourselves to see them as an opportunity to re-set. Rather than just celebrating the beginning of the year, maybe we should look at quarters, or even months. Would it not be better to think about all of the good that happened and get rid of the bad in three months rather than a year? This really seems like something I can get my head around. It makes the chunks that we are going to bite off less overwhelming and maybe I can set goals that I will be able to accomplish in a quarter, rather than run out of stamina over an entire year.
Think about it. What changes can you break down into quarterly segments. Would you celebrate those and then start something new? If you decide to join me, great, and if not, I will celebrate with you once a year and then have three other quarterly celebrations by myself.
Okay, so at the beginning I wrote that the first of the year was mostly good. But I have to share one with you that really just made me shake my head. I worked for a person at one time who saw the beginning of the year as the worst of times. Every January we heard the same rant - all of the costs of the whole coming year had to be covered before there was any opportunity for profit. Rather than see opportunity ahead, this person only saw the costs of the entire year. Like all of these came about on the first day of the year rather than across time. We were already in the hole and had to dig ourselves out. It was one of the most ludicrous ways I'd ever seen to think about the new year, and I was glad it wasn't the way that most of the world saw it. It really takes the fun out of a fresh, new year.
I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season and that you are ready for the New Year. It's already arrived, and as we all know, it will run by us at a staggering rate. May you all be happy and healthy during each quarter of 2016, and may you discover opportunities to re-set more often and feel good about the things you accomplish.
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