New Year’s – Resolutions / Disillusions / Delusions?

Happy new Year! It’s that time of year again where we look forward to what the year ahead holds for us and as our hands fall to our sides after the last hurrahs of ‘Auld Lang Syne’, we’re contemplating our New Year’s resolutions. After all, this is going to be ‘our year’, we can feel it. We’re finally going to achieve that success in fame / fortune / fitness… The gurus cheer us on with motivating examples from the following table:

Now don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing wrong with having a dream. I’m sure we sang it heartily with Abba on New Year’s Eve, and seeing their Hologram Show in London last year demonstrated where having a dream can take you! And there’s nothing wrong with having a goal to aim for, focus on and work towards. But let’s face it, goal setting and goal attainment are an entire industry these days.

So, what are some good goals to focus on in your New Year’s resolution? Goals that won’t leave you discouraged if you don’t reach it, or make you feel like a failure when you look back from next New Year’s Eve…

And therein lies a problem. We have developed a culture of success, of excellence and peak performance. It’s not enough to be better, we have to be the best. Back in the day, getting a silver or bronze medal was a real achievement; now when medallists are interviewed, they cry about not getting the Gold Medal.

I’m not against competition; it is a great motivator, and encourages development of skills, ability and perseverance. And I don’t believe in giving children awards regardless just so they won’t feel bad. Knowing that they are not the best at everything helps people narrow down the field to what their strengths actually are.

On a drive through the Marlborough Sounds over the holiday break, and climbing a fairly steep hill, we passed a cyclist, sweating and battling on what was a particularly hot day, and my wife and I both looked at each other and asked, “Why would you?”

And the answer of course, is that the person was obviously motivated to do it. It may simply have been that their goal was to get to the top of that hill. I got to thinking about hills and mountains; you look at Sir Edmond Hillary and say, ‘There goes someone who climbed the biggest mountain in the World’. Look at our cyclist struggling up the hill; there goes someone who climbed the biggest mountain in their world.

Lessons learnt/ Guidelines for this year’s resolution:

• One man’s mountain is another man’s foothill; but the achievement of either is a great thing
• Don’t try and conquer someone else’s mountain
• Aim for the stars… But be contented if you only have enough energy or resources to make it to the moon
• Be content to settle for second best; there is only one person in the world that can be best, and that spot is already taken
• ‘Mediocre’ is not a dirty word. The best mathematician in the world may be mediocre at tennis, and completely useless at painting portraits. (Unless they are a mathematician doing a paint-by-numbers portrait of a tennis player).

And I like this one from Lisa O’Neill;
‘You need to do more of what lights you up’
Now that’s a great resolution.

Lisa O’Neill’s facebook post;
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/7gBGZzfpJSN35Dej/?mibextid=qi2Omg