As a younger person, I would watch the clock tick down the seconds to the new year and think of all the things I would accomplish in the coming 365 days. The promises I would make myself were often too grandiose and usually based on a feeling of failure from the previous 365 days. I didn’t “___” enough so next year I would “____” twice as much. Of course, 0 x 2 is still 0. I was always bad at math.
Resolutions tended to lead me on a dangerous path, however, where I focused on things that didn’t work out rather than on things that did, whether planned or not. Take for instance my jump into self-publishing this year. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights found me researching the ins and outs of self-publishing. Could I do it? Would it be successful? What if I made a mistake? What if I….gasp…failed?
So many things went wrong with my self-publishing journey. Things I didn’t even anticipate went wrong and I am a list-maker extraordinaire. At the same time, many things went right. Oh, I won’t pretend I sold a gajillion books and made the NYT best-seller list or anything like that. I didn’t. And yes, it would have been nice. I also didn’t expect that to happen. In the larger scheme, however, my journey went as planned. Books were published. Books were sold. Marketing was done. Lessons were learned. Next year, I’m going to stay on the road and make a few more stops.
A new year is not going to suddenly change the person you are. It’s not going to suddenly make you write every day or exercise or stop smoking or reduce your dependence on Amazon’s two-day delivery for tortillas and cheese puffs. If you want to do any of those things, you have to take active steps to become that person.
I’m a writer but I will confess I was not always good about writing every day. I blamed it on my job, which is very analytical/left brain, for interfering with my creative/right brain activity. Guess what? Rather than try and write after work, I started writing before work. Sometimes it’s only 30 minutes but I start my day with creative writing instead. I joined NaNoWriMo this year and put down 20K new words in one month. Altogether, I think I will write around 85K new words this year. Let me tell you – I absolutely FLOATED after November.
If you do want to make a resolution, I suggest you think of it like a plan versus an overnight change you’ll make on December 31. Create some baby steps over the first quarter of the year. I need to learn to market better next year. I want to find some workshops to attend online in Q1, and try out the suggestions I take away from those in Q2.
Whatever you do, be gentle with yourself. Self-care was the buzzword in 2020 but it’s not something that should disappear once the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve. As professionals, we are in a new world with our jobs and family life. “Unprecedented” was declared as the word of the year recently and I can’t think of any word that more appropriately summarizes 2020.
Focus on what you learn. Focus on what you accomplish.
“If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser person than yourself.” ~Max Ehrman
You’re all pretty amazing to have made it this far.