WEEKEND THOUGHTS

Are you prepared?

This is a time of year when many of us reflect on the past and make plans for the future. That’s different from making a “New Years Resolution”. Most of those are short sighted, based on some declaration of the moment and soon abandoned. I once paid a gym fee for a year thinking that would motivate me to keep going. Didn’t work. I think I made it to February.

I’m talking today about real planning. We all have goals and dreams but too often they never change because we don’t really think them out or take any focused action on them. They just stay in that same dream state. A statement by Blaine Athorn at a recent conference made me really think this through. He said, “The future is for those who prepare for it.” That’s why the New Years Resolution never works. No preparation went into it. We don’t reflect on where we are, how we got here or what we need to do to change our future.

Make this year different. Do some preparation before making a declaration. Identify a reachable goal for the New Year, figure out what you need to do to get there and boil it down to some next logical steps along the path. Stick to it every day at least until March (I know February isn’t long enough) and reevaluate your position. With preparation you just might see your goal getting closer.

May you never be the same.