New Beginning's Resolutions
New year's resolutions are a common thing, but why wait? Whenever there's an important transition, there's a new beginning of sorts, which may call for some resolutions to be made. If that's too grandiose a term, call it thinking ahead and planning some.
How do you go about formulating such resolutions? Or rather, where do you start?
I’m going to give a brief summary (partially, a transcript) of a podcast episode by Patrick Lencioni et al., which is about starting a new year with clarity. This is mostly a transcript, all credit goes to them. I'm merely framing things as "resolutions" rather than "new year's resolutions" in the spirit of the argument above. This might also work as a coaching model, who knows?
The key point when making resolutions is not to start with the resolutions, but to start by doing a quick audit with yourself, by knowing yourself, by starting from where you are. (Starting with the resolutions right away means you don’t start from where you are, but where you want to be - you might miss some valuable information.)
You need two blank pieces of paper, and a pen.
Take the first piece of paper, draw a small circle in its centre, and put your name in that. Then draw a large circle around that, and divide it into 6 pizza slices. Fill those in as follows:
First slice: What's your Working Genius, what's your personality type (Meyers-Briggs, DISC, whatever you deem practical)? Write down all the things that are true about you regarding these models. If you don’t have them, that’s fine: in that case, just write down things you know to be true about you regarding your personality. This is about both positive and negative aspects - it's important that they're true.
Second slice: What are your wounds? What things have happened to you in your life that you're recovering from? This can be stuff that took place in your childhood that you're still carrying around with you, or more recent things, at work or not.
Third slice: What is your current life situation? What's going on in your life, family, ... ? What are people around you going through?
Fourth slice: What are you currently feeling? Any stresses, fears, ... ? What's concerning you right now?
Fifth slice: Where are you in your professional life? What's your work situation right now?
Sixth slice: What are your hopes? What do you want to get done? What are you currently working on?
Filling those in, don't admit any feelings of shame. Consider these things as good and challenging things. Don't make excuses.
Congratulations - this is your personal dashboard of where you're beginning from.
Next, take the second blank piece of paper, and write down what the pizza slices you just filled in tell you about where you should start. Be open, there is no right or wrong answer here. What it tells you is a first-line interpretation, not a conclusion.
Now, make commitments for the upcoming time (year, or period, or phase). Make just a few of them, and implementable ones. Limit yourself rather than going overboard. Ideally, make just one commitment. Also, and this is equally important, write down things you're committing to not doing.
Finally, take those two pieces of paper, and bring them to the people closest to you - at home or at work. It’s important that you have the right trust in these people. Discuss the papers with them.
You don't need more structure than this to have a difference between being intentional and purely reactive.
Tags: work