2023 – The Best Year Ever
2022 has pretty well given us all it’s going to give. As the kids say, “two more sleeps” and it will be 2023.
So our thoughts turn to New Year’s Resolutions.
I’ve been around long enough to know that New Year’s Resolutions are strong in concept but fragile in delivery. More often than not I flame out early because my solemn vow to myself was both too large and too high-torque. Resolutions are exactly the same as nuclear fusion, they only work if they are contained and managed.
So this year it occurred to me that I’d borrow a concept from the Alignment Principle, with a nod in the direction of Keller’s great book, The One Thing.
We know that all the good stuff in life comes when we live in our Giftings. And what are Giftings? Well, they are those innate attributes which have been shaped by experience and honed by training. When you find and live in the centre of your unique Giftings, life is good for you and for all around you.
Living in your Giftings puts you in a state that Csikszentmihalyi calls “Flow”, a place where your actions bring you intrinsic joy.
So with this in mind, let’s say I focus my resolution on my Giftings, or at least one of them. Suppose I were to commit that every day I will devote just twenty minutes to my best Gifting. Writing, painting, marketing, woodcarving, the kazoo – just pick your “best you”. And if you have two and can’t choose, flip a coin and save one for next year.
If you need to spend an hour, or a day, or a week, sorting out the ability or attribute you own which is very special to you, do it. That will be the best return-on-investment hour, day, or week you’ll ever spend.
Take a 3×5 card, or the back of your business card, or anything of the sort, and just write something like, “Kazoo – 20 minutes every day.” Keep it on your desk or on your bathroom mirror, and don’t let a day go by without treating yourself to twenty minutes on the kazoo. Or voice. Or writing poetry. Or finishing that book. Or whatever – that Gifting which is most satisfying.
I’m prepared to take serious bets that you will change your life.