“There is nothing magical about the flip of the calendar, but it represents a clean break, a new hope, and a blank canvas.”
― Jason Soroski
The year of 2020 will go down as possibly the worst year we have lived through, especially for those born after World War Two. The Coronavirus has ravaged our health services, our economies and our personal lives through loss and separation. The end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 was an emotional one for many, as it means that even though we still need to remain vigilant around keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe, through social-distancing measures, 2020 is behind us.
In 2020, many of us had to adjust to living more solitary lives, with us not being able to mix with friends and family as we normally would, and many had to learn new skills around working from home. The term Key Worker took on new meanings, as supermarket assistants became essential to keeping us all going. Those on the front line in hospitals in our battle with this virus went through seemingly unending heartbreak with a kind of hardy stoicism that made them into superheroes in our eyes. The use of technology like Zoom became the way we remained connected to loved ones, to congregations from places of worship and to colleagues for team meetings, where we gathered remotely. Much of which we will be taking with us through to the coming year.
All of the normal things are true about starting a new year. The days will be getting longer and warmer, we get to set goals for the year ahead and there is a new beginning before us; we can rethink what we want out of life and we can reinvent ourselves to a degree. This is our moment to decide what we want our 2021 to be like. There will still be much that we cannot control, as is the nature of life, but if we accept what we cannot control we can put our focus and our energy into the things we can. The prime example of this is our attitude to the circumstances we are in. If we are working from home, we can see this as a barrier to team cohesion or we can see it as an opportunity to learn new skills and work in a more flexible manner to get our work done. If we have to use technology like Zoom to keep in touch we friends and family, we can learn new ways to connect and be grateful that this pandemic is happening now and not before the invention of the internet.
So, when it comes to setting goals for the coming year I would like you to consider that one of the reasons that new year’s resolutions tend not to work is that as we are resolving to make the changes for the year ahead, by default, we are not thinking of them as permanent changes, therefore we are often not 100% committed. Research on this tells us that even if we are 98% committed, we often do not follow through, because that 2% matters. Instead, if we see the new resolutions as life resolutions with 100% commitment, then the decision is made, it is done, and we do not need to deliberate it any more. We are all in on the new changes we are making.
The areas I recommend you look at making goals in are your health, your career, your relationships and in your self mastery. The last one is around developing a growth mindset, seeing confidence, optimism and resilience as skills to be developed. Also, to go all in on the project, the plans or the challenge you have been putting off. If we have learned anything from 2020 it is that life is precious and a long life is not a guarantee. So, let’s go and make 2021 an amazing year, full of ambitions achieved, kindness shared and joy generated.
The Fullfilment Project 