I am not a fan of new year resolutions. For one thing, we can start making changes anytime we’d like–moving toward the life we want isn’t only possible when the calendar changes from one year to the next. In fact, thinking that way could be a form of self-sabotage that keeps you from growing and changing. Plus on a practical level, many goals aren’t necessarily time dependent (e.g., maintaining an exercise plan or a creative practice).
Of course, it can be helpful to use the calendar as a forcing function. For example, I plan to write a monthly blog entry this year, which is a marketing tactic connected to my longer-term goal of increasing the time I spend coaching (and reducing the time I spend consulting).
For a variety of reasons, my longer-term goal doesn’t fit neatly into a 12-month calendar. Do I have a timeline in mind for when I want to be doing more coaching and less consulting? Yes. But I came up with that goal and timeline last summer, because that’s when I was ready and able to sit down and set my goals and make a plan. I wasn’t ready last January, so I didn’t force it then. I was ready in July, so I sat down and made a plan–but I didn’t wait until this January to get started.
My biggest message at the start of 2024 is this: Don’t tell yourself that you must make big changes now, in January, or you’re somehow lacking, unworthy, or behind schedule. You’re none of those things. You can start in February, or August. Time is a tool you can use and not something that should be calling the shots.
That said, if you’re having a hard time getting started on making a change–or even making a plan to change–it might be helpful to ask why. I’ve struggled to get started with various changes–especially anything connected to my professional identity, larger human purpose, or financial stability. Those are triggers for me (for reasons various coaches and therapists have helped me to understand), so if those things are implicated in a change I can spend an embarrassing amount of time spinning in circles and not moving forward. Again, coaching and therapy have made this better over time (yay!).
Through my coaching practice I’ve discovered that I am not alone. I work with many people who are grappling with their professional goals and career plans, and financial worries and questions of identity and purpose are often nested inside. Acknowledging that reality is often the first step in taming the human brain’s tendency to spin out of control when we come to a crossroads (we were built to triage threats and minimize change, as I’ve written about before).
And as the spinning eases, the fun work of planning a better future can begin.
And I promise that what the calendar says has little bearing on whether it’s time to start, or whether you’ll succeed. That all depends on where you want to go, your commitment to the destination, and whether you have the support you need to get there. It’s a puzzle, but one that is fun to put together.
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