Well, I'll admit it; I was a victim of the holidays and of vacation this year. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last.
But tomorrow is New Year's Eve, which brings with it the promise of resolutions and new starts. I don't make resolutions, though - I set goals. And I've set my goals for the new year already, in areas of personal fitness, professional success, and social engagement with my family and my community. These are all aligned with my personal mission statement, although some of my goals which should be 'maintains' are actually 'improves'.
I'm actually okay with that, as I had a banner year this year (2014). While I did not fully accomplish all of my goals, I did really well on them, and I believe I made more progress than I would have otherwise. I got a new job in my company, finished a religious education program, worked as an Assistant Scoutmaster, and met many of my fitness challenges. This last category, though, is where I fell the most short, as a few of my longer-term objectives (being able to do pull-ups, for example) just didn't happen. In the big picture, these were less-important to me, and when time became crunched, they were eliminated.
For 2015, I need to keep my goals realistic. Time is my most limited resource, so that's going to be the constraint I have to address the whole year. Having been on vacation for a few days, I am already falling into the trap of thinking I can do more than I really can once work and other engagements creep back into my daily life. What I need to do better in this year, more than anything else, is to manage my time and my priorities better. Especially at work, I need to focus on the important, not just the urgent, and really discriminate the things that only I can do, versus those that others can do (especially if they can do them better). That's always been hard for me, as I tend to think that I'm the only one who can do many things the 'right' way, when really, it's just 'my' way. There are more right ways than I usually think of, and I need to accept that 90% of 'my way' may actually be better, especially if it trains someone else to think about how to do things differently.
That's a lot to think about, but my other objective for 2015 is to be more engaged. I've spent the last six months sleepwalking, it seems, and I need to be done with that. If I focus my time on the task at hand, it will probably get done better than if I'm constantly multitasking. And the only way to stop trying to do everything is to distribute authority with responsibility more often, and to the right, talented people I work with. How to do that best - I haven't figured out yet, but with some changes coming, and some quiet time scheduled every day to just think, I will figure it out.
On to 2015, a year of new engagement, new ideals, and hopefully, a better me.
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