what is your new year resolution.

2017 has been very good to me in some ways, and bad in other ways. Or, more accurately, I’ve done a lot of things right, and there are a lot of things I want to get better at.

You make your own luck.

A lot of my writing is my own therapy. I write about my own experiences of personal development and of growing professional life. It’s selfish, it helps me. Hopefully though, it can help you too…

It’s cliché, but every year I want it to be ‘new year, new me.’

Why?

Two reasons. Firstly, the downtime over the Christmas break and the run up to New Year gives me the time that I never get throughout the year to truly analyse and reflect on my progress, personally and professionally.

Secondly, January is an exciting time to instil new habits and actions. Nothing much is happening outside of work, it’s cold, everyone else is working hard so you can reach the people you need to.

January is the month to really hit the ground running and DO.

So, cliché or not, this is an opportunity to dictate how 2018 is going to play out.

Here are the things I want to do to improve in 2018…

A) Worry less

It’s been a good year. I’ve worked on a lot of exciting writing projects and the business is growing well. I’ve launched the new blog website which I designed and created myself despite being the least technical person I know. Proof that with hard work, you can do anything, within reason.

But, my successes have been clouded by internal anguish far too often. I’ve been more anxious this year, even about the little things. I worry about things I can’t control, like the future, and the health of my family. I worry about money. I worry about most things.

Most of my problems manifest from mindset.

Dale Carnegie wrote in his book, ‘How To Stop Worrying And Start Living’ that you should imagine the worst case scenario, then accept it. If you accept the worst-case scenario you can start planning what to do, instead of wasting time and energy fretting.

I like this philosophy, the problem is, this plants your mind on the problem. And I know that 99% of my problems are completely made up, or about bad things in the future that are never ever going to happen! So, does overthinking them sound like a good solution for me?

Probably not.

Like most things then, it is about finding what works for me.

I know that I don’t worry about anything in the present, I only worry about things in the future. I don’t have money problems now, my family is in good health now, I’m not anxious while I’m writing this.

I worry about not giving my family a good life in the future, I worry about things happening to them in the future, I worry that no one will read this when I hit ‘publish.’

So, my mindset is now to try and not worry about the future, at all…

If I do the right things every day, the future will work itself out. Worrying takes away energy and focus from the present, so I’m sabotaging my own future by worrying about it.

B) Be more patient

Given how quickly life seems to go, it’s difficult to believe that this blog is only one year old. ONE! Yet I feel like I’ve been doing this forever.

Patience is hard. Malcolm Gladwell said in his 2008 bestselling book, Outliers: The Story of Success, that it takes 10,000 hours (about 5 years) to master a field, or to re-invent yourself. Which is what I’m doing with this blog, and my copywriting business. Sometimes accepting that it’s going to take that long to really change my life is a challenge.

Maybe it won’t take that long. Maybe it will take longer. It doesn’t really matter…

Life is good right now. I don’t need more money or a sense of importance right now to feel good about myself. So, I can take this time to improve to a level of mastery.

By the way, there is only one reason why I do anything. One reason why I’m trying to make more of myself and be a ‘success.’ And that reason is not money.

It is FREEDOM.

Freedom to be my own boss. Freedom to work only doing what I love. Freedom to wander. Freedom to travel. Freedom to spend more time with my family.

I have one life and I want to be free.

C) Move slower

Busy fools are fools for a reason. They spend their lives running around being ‘busy’ and they celebrate it. People think being busy equals being important. This isn’t true. It means you’re happy to continue your bout of slavery.

I do too many things that don’t matter. I get too easily distracted. I try to do too much every day – this leads to paralysis. I am a slave to things, like my smartphone…

I don’t get distracted by stupid things like watching random YouTube videos or scrolling mindlessly through Facebook. I get distracted by new podcasts, or emails with new articles from my favourite writers.

I get distracted by things that add value to me. The problem is, they add value at the wrong time of the day. When you focus on one thing at a time, and do that thing well, you will be more productive and more well-rounded in your strategic thinking.

I want to move slower. I want to be more calculated.

I want to do more things right in 2018.