Resolutions that Matter.
Perhaps you’ve promised yourself one of these:
“I’m going to go to the gym every day.”
“I’m going to stop eating carbs, sugar, and everything else that’s bad for me.”
“I’m not going to procrastinate anymore.”
“I’m going to get at least seven or eight hours of sleep each night.”
It’s no wonder some of these resolutions might sound familiar. Each year we burden ourselves with lots of unrealistic promises that we simply know we’re not going to keep. Truth is, I think the less realistic we make the resolutions, the more easily we can ignore them. Perhaps we even subconsciously set ourselves up to fail.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Then it’s no wonder most of us look at New Year’s Resolutions as a fool’s errand.
But what if we could actually do something for the new year that mattered? What if we actually promised to do something that could really move us forward?
Better yet, what if we actually prepared for the new year to give our resolutions a chance to actually work for us?
Here are a few suggestions that work for me:
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Reflect and Respond.
My friend Karen Hirschfeld is a genius executive coach who works with Fortune 100 CEOs all around the world. From her perch in Geneva she helps the people running companies run their own businesses — and their lives — more effectively. Each year about this time Karen sends her clients a list of sentence completion exercises that helps them review what they accomplished in the year gone by and what they’re planning for the year to come. This way, their New Year’s resolutions are not random but rather are based on results from the past and thoughtful plans for the future.
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Clear Your Space.
I don’t know about you, but by the end of the year my various spaces are pretty untidy. My desk is covered with papers and business cards that I’ve been meaning to deal with. My computer desktop is scattered with files and emails that I’ve been planning to put away. My night table is stacked with books and magazines that I’ve been wanting to read. And my mind is cluttered with thoughts and projects I’ve been trying to get to. That’s why I declare the last two weeks in December “info amnesty.” I either put the stuff away or pitch it in the trash. Face it, if you haven’t dealt with the piles by now, you’re not going to next week or next year either. Instead, give yourself one last chance to do it or dump it and start the new year with a clean slate.
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Audit Your Brand.
Pardon me for saying so, but your website sucks. So does your social media presence and your marketing materials. And so do mine.
It’s not because they were bad when we created them. It’s because the world has changed drastically since then. Things moved on while we were busy running our businesses and now our materials are so twenty minutes ago. So why not take the next few days to look at everything you’re using to promote yourself and figure out what you can do to upgrade them into 2018?
To help you with all these things, I’ve created a new online branding and marketing program called Brand Billions. It’s the new online environment where I’ll be able to share everything I know about brand building with all the people I communicate with. The goal of this new community is to get all of us ready to compete and prosper in the brave new world we all find ourselves in.
If you’re interested in learning more, simply go HERE. I know you’ll be inspired by what you find. If you take a look before the end of the year you’ll even find some very special new year’s gifts waiting for you. After all, if I want you to make resolutions that matter, the least I can do is make it worth your while to follow my lead.
In the meantime, I wish you a very happy and peaceful holiday season and a very prosperous new year.