>It is the time to write our New Year Resolutions! This is the year we save the world, get into amazing shape, only eat healthy food, grow our business fifty percent, and write the great American Novel.
I love the New Year Holiday and I love the idea of New Years Resolutions! The tradition of starting fresh, new ideas, new plans and plenty of new opportunity. Heading into a new year always fills me with lots of positive thoughts, energy and excitement. It is the perfect time to be mindful, and think about what we cherish about our lives and what we would like to change. It is time to make a personal commitment to be grateful for what we love and work to change what we don’t. It is the perfect tradition!
The perfect tradition, with one little catch. Resolutions are often forgotten or broken by about mid-January, leaving us to really start the year feeling like we have failed before we even got started. Why? Because while we commit to make changes, we often bite off more than we can chew and then just the thought of making change is overwhelming.
Yesterday I was given great wisdom and insight on this very topic by my seventeen year old nephew. Yes, apparently teenagers do know everything! We were riding down the road, when a United Parcel Services (UPS) truck passed us. My nephew took this opportunity to inform me that UPS designs their daily routes so that their drivers can make as many right turns as possible when delivering packages. Why? Because making more right turns saves the drivers time, cuts down on accidents, and uses less gasoline. Putting the company on track to both save money and increase revenue. A small change that has a big impact.
I thought about that piece of wisdom all day, and thought why don’t we apply that type of common sense to our own lives?Set our sites on big change (UPS obviously wanted to have a big impact on overall revenue, timely service, and expense control) with small, bite-size effort. The type of effort we can make and one we will consistently do. I mean think about it, let’s assume UPS asks the question, “How could we save money and grow our revenues?” There are a million different answers to that question, and a million things they could have done, but they chose to begin with one that was minimally intrusive, simple to implement, and still had a big impact.
So as you head into this New Year, think about your own life. What do you love about it? What would you like to improve? Then identify one small and simple change you could make, one you could truly commit to, and make it. Let your resolution represent a big difference you want to make in your life, but let the way you go about carrying it out be small and simple. As you move into 2011, make a new resolution to make small incremental changes that have a lasting impact on your professional and personal life! Happy New Year!
