An acquaintance recently sent out what looked like a verbal questionnaire basically asking friends for their assessment over the course of the year in terms of character and personality, according to the acquaintance it was for self evaluation. I smiled to myself, it wasn’t surprising at all, after all, it is that time of the year.
A friend made a comment still recently, “You were jobless and broke in 2019 and your new year resolution is to never go broke in 2020, if you do not get a job and work hard, you will be so broke you’d give the word a run for its money”.
It’s that time of the year where people reflect on the last 352 days of their lives, what they did and didn’t do, where they went wrong, relationships that they should break, build or repair, habits they should unlearn or learn, “new year, new me” everyone sings as though a new year equals a new world with new systems and new people. I wonder, do the numbers that spell the year have to change before a man realizes he has to make certain changes to his life and seek to effect those changes? You’d rather live with those bad situations you have observed, wait till the year comes to an end and then pick up a pen and paper, scribble some things that is just between you and the paper, tag it vision 2020 or my new year’s resolution. And then, come the last day of the old year or first day of the new year when you are doing your “new year cleaning” everything old is thrashed including your vision 2020.
One would think as I did years ago that with the new year would come changes in the world as we know it, with new clouds, maybe green in colour, a sun that rises at night while the moon will exist only at mornings, blue grasses and a change in every human complexion. That those who hate us will love us now, that the poor will suddenly become rich or the short will grow taller over night. How I waited that faithful year, but the 1st was just like every other day, the air did not even have a perfumed scent.
The only thing different as usual was the time, and the numbers of the year, it’s all in the passage of time, nothing else. I made some resolutions on my last birthday, many of which I achieved and few that I didn’t. From my personal observation I achieved only the things I consciously worked towards achieving, the things I didn’t work towards, I did not achieve. That’s the beauty of resolutions, they aren’t achieved by some stoke of luck or magic wand that comes with the new year, only your deliberate effort, commitment and intentional actions can help you achieve them.
Oh, making resolutions is definitely a good idea, but if your 2020 resolution is the same as your 2019 resolution which is also the same as your 2018 resolution, then I’d have to ask what you were doing for the past 1,576,800 minutes of your life. Resolutions are not things you make because every other person is making one, they are not only negative habits you want to stop, they could be positive habits you need to engage in, they are not to be recurring over and over again neither are they meant for the new year alone.
At any point in your life, the end of a bad week, after a failed exam, the beginning of a new job or what have you, you can sit back, take a self evaluation test, make new plans to achieve your desired outcome, using the smart principle (simple, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound) set short and long term goals and then go about achieving them. That is making a resolution in deed and making a resolution to achieve your resolutions. It’s foolhardy to take note of changes you need to make in your life but continue to wallow because you are waiting till the end of the year to put them in your new year resolution.
Have you ever gone back to your resolutions at the end of the year for a reassessment? Noting those you achieved and those you did not. One what grounds do you make resolutions, from your personal assessment of your life or from observing the lives of your peers? How many of us still have our resolution sheet by the end of the year?
Reflect, make resolutions and work towards achieving them, always. This is the making of a new you.