I’ve seen many flavors of new year resolutions over the years – goals, systems, mantras, words. They’re all various implementations of the same principle and it is lovely to see the diversity. My chosen flavor over the past few years has been to pick 3 themes for the year.
In keeping with that, my 3 themes for 2019 are –
(1) Invest in my health: I didn’t have a personal health item in the last two years or so – but, the best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining. So, I’ve identified two areas where I’d like to invest. The first is to work with a fitness trainer. The system goal here would be to get one physical training session in during every working week of the year.
The second is to continue investing in removing shallow interactions with technology – e.g. pointless checking of email, mindless surfing. I identified this as an area to work on in 2017, experimented plenty in 2018, and plan to continue to do so in 2019.
(2) Be a better partner: We have 2 young kids and have faced a few immigration related challenges in the past year and a half. While we’re hopeful for some light at the end of the tunnel in 2018, my wife has shouldered the bulk of the burden.
But, I foresee more opportunities to help shoulder more of the load in 2019. And I am looking forward to doing that.
(3) Communicate constructively and with clarity: I’ve written about the impact “Nonviolent Communication” (I wonder if “Constructive Communication” might have been a better name) had on me. I’ve also written a bunch about the impact of “The Pyramid Principle” on my writing at work over the past six months. I expect to re-read both books this month and hope to do a better job internalizing the lessons from them as I communicate this year.
As you can tell from my notes on these themes, they don’t always have a specific system goal or follow up action. The only commitment I make is to be deliberately re-commit every weekend. That act alone inspires plenty of incremental follow up action over the year.
So, here’s to plenty of incremental progress. And, here’s wishing you a lovely start to 2019.
