I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big one for New Year’s Resolutions. Mainly because I had a long history of resolving … and then reneging on whatever promise I’d made to myself.
There’s something about a whole new decade, though, that seems made for a fresh start.
(Yes, the purists tell me the “new decade” actually begins next January. Something about no Year Zero. I don’t know, when I start staying “20-20-something” instead of “20-something-teen,” it feels new to me.)
I’m not alone in setting intentions for the ‘20s, either. People fall into a few camps when it comes to their goals as we round the curve into 2020.
Call it minding our mindset.
Life Coach Gina Covarrubias plans to “cut down on the mind chatter. Sometimes we like to think about things to our own detriment. If my thoughts aren’t useful, they will get tossed immediately like rotten fruit.”
Thinking bigger is on the 2020-To-Do-List for persuasion expert and speaker Lynne Franklin. “One of my important learns from this decade,” she says, “has been that when I set a clear goal for myself, I don’t need to have every step worked out on how to get there. Often people and resources show up (like magic!) as I need them. It’s time to have more faith in that.”
Sales speaker Mark Steele is on a similar path. “Too often, I would doubt my ability to make something uniquely amazing until I had most of the pieces figured out. In 2020, I will push myself to leap sooner!!
The Neptune Society’s Deb Kobak says, “I’m going to remember that I only can do my best and not beat myself up if some things don’t get done.”
We’re independent professionals. We need to increase sales.
At ImprovTalk, where they offer team-building and leadership workshops, Jim Mecir says his plan is to “reach out and send more emails and make more calls. It is a numbers game. Rarely do people find you.”
Workplace Futurist Marti Konstant is planning her own future. “I will think more strategically about my network and systematically set up discovery meetings.”
Corporate Storyteller Roderick Kelly is making a change farther along in the sales process. “We will hold off on drafting a proposal until after a deal is agreed upon.” Smart, right? Nothing worse than laboring over a proposal that goes nowhere.
And you can’t sell it if they don’t get it. David Panitch of Results Technology Group is out to “Increase focus on our core expertise and help our network understand what it is!”
There’s something in the air about instinct.
“I’ll trust my intuition when it comes to how I spend my time, energy, and money,” says nonprofit professional and photographer Liz Farina Markel. “I always know what the answer is, but I have to tune out the competing voices that do not have my best interests at heart and trust my heart, my brain, and my experience.”
CultureCraft Founder Nick Richtsmeier: “When something doesn’t feel right, when a person’s actions don’t match their words, when it seems powering over or powering down are the only options… I’ll step back. I’ll get quiet. I’ll get clear.”
Nick adds, “The 2010s were about using my force of will to override bad situations. The 2020s will be about a quieter, more refined strategy based on instinct.”
Ditto for leadership consultant Gregory Wade. “Trusting my instincts will be key. As we become more senior and develop even more experience (and experiences), knowing that we’ve learned a lot is super important to trusting one’s instincts.”
For some it’s all about getting things done.
Speaker and author Allie Pleiter is heading into a busy year. “So, my big goal for 2020 is to identify what I can outsource and put the systems in place to make that happen smoothly. After being a solopreneur for almost 20 years, that means tamping down my inner control freak and making some big changes in how I work!”
Similar story from Anchor Advisors’ Brad Farris. “FOCUS is my biggest change for the next decade. Doing more on fewer priorities.”
Setting fewer goals is the plan for Christine Flynn at Loyola University. “Last year I was gung-ho about getting so much accomplished that I didn’t give myself room for life to happen. Guess what? Life happened! This year I pared down my goals and I am so excited to accomplish them all!”
You know I’m on the get-‘er-done train too.
Nothing is more important for me now than making things happen. Not planning or pondering or palavering … doing is the key for me.
It’s also a challenge for me. Maybe you read about Imposter Syndrome—it dawned on me that I have dodged success by not finishing things. All kinds of things.
First order of 2020 business is to finally wrap up work on a new website with help from Lisa Ghisolf and Randy Heller.
I’ll also be doing some of that mindset work my friends mentioned. And those calls-emails-meetings are essential too, so I can book more engagements in 2020. (This email counts as outreach if you write back to start a conversation about me speaking at your upcoming conference or event!)
How do you make sure it all happens?
You might consider an accountability partner—someone you can talk with regularly about your progress (or lack of it) with your intentions.
And you know I’m a believer in mastermind groups. They can help you develop achievable goals and report on the progress you’re making so you can keep making more.
Putting it out in public is another way to set yourself up for sticking with your plan. Let me help you manifest your intentions!
Post a comment below and tell us ow you’re going to make 2020 your year.
Catherine, I’m going to be more intentional about maintaining my focus on seeking to understand before seeking to be understood. Happy New Year!
You’ll be a popular guy if you can do that, Rich! Happy New Year to you too.
Today, I raise a toast to the great people who have passed and who stood behind me in life.
One was Dr. James Oldshue.
Here is the wiki about James Oldshue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Oldshue
During the early and mid-1990’s, Dr. Oldshue key noted at chemical industry conferences and symposiums. Oldshue frequently recruited me to do a 20 to 30 minute lead in presentation on chemical and food industry mixing applications and then I would introduce Dr. Oldshue. He dazzled the engineers.
The audience was about the size of our church audience.
Hmm.
I was more nervous when reading at church than when talking to 400 engineers until I learned to trust the souls in my church. I was an experienced stage speaker long before I read God’s words at church. Yet there I was, afraid to read a book in front of neighbors at my church.
When talking to chemical engineers, I had Dr. Oldshue behind me. All I did was to introduce a great scientist and tell about the practical results of his work. Easy.
What might I learned from Dr. Oldshue?
1st, talking to/with people you understand and trust is easy.
2nd, the person standing behind gives confidence.
So today, I raise a toast to the great passed people passed who stand behind me including: John Broline, father; Kermit Broline, uncle and newspaper editor; Pete Reuss, Eng; Robert Overmeyer, industry leader; Chan Coyle, Eng; Dr. James Oldshue, Eng; and some others.
Jim Broline
Valuable lessons, Jim. Cheers!
I’m one of those purists, Catherine. This has been bugging me since we celebrated the New Millennium a year too early in 1999, thereby missing the end of the 2nd millennium and the beginning of the Third, according to our current calendar. People keep confusing counting years with watching odometers roll over from zero to one, or rocket countdowns that ENDS at zero because there is no time left before lift off.
You are correct that there was no year zero. We don’t START counting any set or group of things with zero. We always start counting things with the number one. So any decade, century or millennium must start with 1 and end with a number that ends with a zero, the place holder for 10. Otherwise is it is not completed or counted correctly, even though people think that naming a decade is the same thing as numbering the years.
Thank you. Rant over until next December 31st.
I get it, Stephen. This kind of thing drives some people crazy! Maybe the key is in what you said about naming a decade and numbering the years. For me, the naming has more resonance than the numbering. So this feels like the beginning of a new decade for me. In any event, it’s never a bad time to take the opportunity for a fresh start
Thank you! I’m certainly trying to use the new year to take that fresh start in planning, listing tasks so I won’t forget what I want to do or need to buy,, and crossing them off when accomplished (surprisingly satisfying to do!), set medium and long-term goals–all things I’ve been hearing that I should do for many years. Now that I have noticed more short-term memory loss, the lists really help!
It is satisfying, crossing things off the list, Stephen. Some productivity experts recommend against a long list of small tasks; like you, I find it helpful to write things down. And I do feel good when I look at back and see how much I got done. One of my 2020 goals is to read more books and fewer posts, blogs, articles–short-form stuff on the internet. Not that I don’t enjoy those things. I do. And, I need to make room for deeper reading–and thinking.
I did read your post twice, along with the article link that the Imposter syndrome. I’m sure that I do that quite a bit, partly because I honestly don’t think I am very good at what I do, or did when I was employed as a librarian for 28 years. But I honestly loved helping the public find what they wanted. I think I was a good fellow employee, but perhaps not a very good boss. I was not as organized as I should have been, nor was I very good at carrying out the aspects of librarianship that I did not enjoy.
I’m starting my ninth year of retirement, and enjoying it. I read or listend to my Bible a chapter a day, 300 days, in 2019. I want to continue and improve that consistency, and add to it more consistent and intentional prayer and journaling. Possibly other writing as well, which is a goal I used to have, but gave up after college because I thought I had nothing to say that people wanted to hear. I want to do more amateur astronomy with my binoculars and telescope, even though it is difficult for me in my wheelchair. I have tried to talk to my mother by phone long distance weekly in 2019. Now I want to keep in better contact with my siblings also scared around the country, and With friends , some of whom have slipped away from me for various reasons. I want to make real plans to visit the Ark Encounter and revisit the Creation Museum, both in Kentucky, this year if possible, instead of just wishing it. I also would like to make real plans to be somewhere with clear skies on the the eclipse center line for the solar eclipse in 2024. It is likely the last total solar eclipse visible on American soil in my lifetime. I talked myself out of trying to get to see the 2017 Total Eclipse, which I greatly regret.
I was honored to be included in your list, Catherine. Thanks for sharing lots of powerful ideas — and a gentle reminder that I don’t have to have everything figured out in advance!
Those comments created kind of a virtual mastermind, didn’t they, Lynne? I have some pretty savvy friends with wisdom to share. And you’re so right about not having to have it all figured out in advance. Sometimes, waiting for all the steps to become clear is just a way to stop myself. I need to stop stopping!