A New Year with Old Goals

It is a new year. The year 2014 is here and we are faced with the excitement and trepidation that a new year can bring. Most of us, with at least a passing thought, consider what we can do better in a new year. We set goals and set out to correct things that may be amiss in our lives. We want to lose weight, we want to earn more money, we want to stay spiritually connected, we want to devote more time to our families, and we want to put bad habits behind us. We are rarely successful at making the changes we desire because by January 15 life has grabbed us and our focus and resolve has been pulled back to the rigors of our daily life. It strikes me that most of our resolutions in a new year are focused on the negative aspects of our lives. We have a vision for perfection—introspect about where we fall short—and desire change that draws us closer to that mark. Why don’t we focus on the positive aspects of our lives when we set our goals? It seems to me that sustaining success where we have already excelled is a better way to think about a new year.

What has improved in your life in the last year? Did you have some quality time with your children that can be repeated? Did you take more time to nurture the intimacy with your spouse? Did you make a good financial decision or pay off a debt? Did your team grow in skill and character through your coaching effort? Did you learn something spiritually or see God work in your life in a way that you had not experienced before? I suspect each one of us had successes in the important areas of our life in 2013. More importantly, I suspect that each of those successes can be repeated with greater frequency in 2014.

The point is—where is your focus? On failure or success? Are you focused on your failures or are you focused on the sense of accomplishment from those things you did well? It is not drudgery to do the things that yield success, but it can be crushing to seek to battle failure over and over. The subtlety here is this—when you are working to repeat your successes the failures are marginalized and diminished because you are working towards the positive things in your life. When you achieve repeated success, there is less time and less motivation to engage in those things that lead to failures. I eat less and exercise more when I am engaged in nurturing my relationship with my spouse. I work harder when I am repeating successes that have netted positive results at work. I spend more time connecting spiritually when I am seeking to repeat the positive experiences of the past.

We don’t need a new life in a new year. We need to be the best we can be where we are. There is no sense in working to be a quarterback when my skill set is that of a lineman. Be the best lineman and repeat the success you have already achieved. Attack the new year with a focus on positives of the last year. Seek to repeat them on a more frequent basis and those failures you perceive will come in line and 2014 will be a great year!