A Different Kind of 2021 New Year’s Resolution

It’s not uncommon this time of year for many people to come up with their New Year’s resolutions. I have done this in the past, and it usually centered on some outcome; something I wanted to improved about myself. I would imagine many others had a similar experience as I did — the pursuit of said resolutions lasted anywhere from hours to a few weeks. The biggest reason, I think, is that we focus on an outcome over the journey.

The other day I attended a webinar hosted by Dr. Michael Gervais and Nicole Davis from Compete to Create. The title of the event was “Mindset for 2021” and it was a conversation about a lot of topics around training our minds, much like we train our bodies or our craft. I am a big fan how the Compete to Create team continually reinforces the point that the mind can be trained — so many of the mental skills, such as optimism, can be learned.

Eventually the conversation came around to goals, and then New Year’s resolutions. Dr. Gervais and Nicole discussed the idea of focusing our thinking around intention, over outputs and even some outcomes. Why? Because intention is something we can fully control — how we show up everyday is a choice. They went on to offer a strategy for setting intention-based goals for the New Year. They suggest filling in the blank for the following statement:

This is the year of ___________

I pondered the connection to Agile Best Self once I heard this conversation. It was a bit of a disruptive thought, but in the best possible way. This exercise clearly sets us on a path we intended when Michaele and I wrote Principle 8:

A clear statement of intent about how we plan to show up in the new year. I also feel like it’s a way to put this past year behind us and start anew with optimism — the belief that something good is going to happen.

A similar exercise can be found in Jon Gordon’s new book, entitled One Word that Will Change Your Life. The book describes that One Word that provide clarity and simplicity to create a catalyst for change and growth.

So now it’s time for me to go to work. I feel like I have just identified the missing piece of the puzzle, and now I need to find it and put it in place. I have to admit, I don’t know yet how to fill in the blank for me, but I am definitely curious about doing this exercise in the coming days.

This might be the beginning of a journey to create the next Agile Best Self workshop.

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