2024 Not Starting as Planned? Good for You

If you're off track on your resolutions already, I'm with you. My 2024 began with THE sickness. All my new year’s momentum came to a screeching halt as I retreated to my bed for a couple days and had persistent man-cold symptoms for several days after that ;) But let me share why early setbacks are good for your New Year's resolutions and mine too.

January is not the Superbowl of New Year’s resolutions (nor is February).?

Resolutions are merely dreams until January 1st. That’s when they meet reality as your dreaming shifts to doing. As reality sets in, you realize your dreams of perfection were only a mirage. Sickness happens, the NFL playoff season hijacks your brain (only hypothetical here of course), or life happens in one of any other zillion ways.?

So, January might feel like a do-or-die month, but it's only the opening game of a long season. If it's not going as planned, then yes, good for you. Get perfection out of the way. I got my behind handed to me dropping the ball with every health and productivity goal/habit I have on week one, but week two, as the brain fog clears, I'm re-committing to my goals - now in the face of reality.

These first weeks, even months, are when you get out on the field to work on your game identifying what external/internal challenges stand in your way to success, testing out routines and strategies, and committing to your goals for real. What’s important is that you stay on the field. You keep playing the game. Make adjustments, take rest, but keep getting after those resolutions or at least some form of them so that at least next January you can say you are ahead of where you were this January.

And don't miss that the value of having goals is the satisfying experience of putting the work in. No team has ever won the Superbowl and then hung up their cleats retiring for the beach. No, they do go to Disney World, but then they set out to play the game again, just like billionaires don’t entirely leave business behind for yacht life (except for Bezos). It’s because they realize the fun in life is in striving towards our goals, not in reaching them.

“What man needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.” - Viktor Frankl

Okay. So, you’ve had 10 days to experience the friction of reality against your dreamy resolutions. Not going as planned? Good for you!

What is reality teaching you? What adjustments need to be made with your goal or strategy? Who's in this with you?

If you could use accountability and support, join Vocation Allies. I’m gathering a community of Allies to partner together getting clear on what matters and organizing our lives accordingly, so we can seize the day at both work and home. Learn more at vocationallies.com or message me. I’d love to get you connected!