New Years's irresolution

Cloudy lakeside

Photo by Andrew Hughes on Unsplash

I’ve chosen not to make any specific resolutions this year; I’ve found that they just don’t work for me. Like many people, all I get is a sense of guilt when I inevitably fail to live up to the expectations I set myself at the start of the year. However, I have set a couple of what I’m referring to as “themes” for the year: touchstones that I’ll aim to refer to when setting priorities or just feeling a bit overwhelmed or lacking in direction.

They are:

  1. Contribution
  2. Self-care
  3. Measurement

I may do some blog posts expanding on these, but in the meantime, I’ve put together a handful of questions to help me think about priorities and get perspective when I’m doing (or avoiding doing) something.

  1. What difference is this making?
    • I feel more motivated when I can figure out how I’m contributing to something bigger than myself.
    • In society?
    • In my organisation?
    • To my friends & family?
  2. Am I looking after myself?
    • I focus a lot on the expectations have (or at least that I think others have) of me, but I can’t do anything well unless I’m generally happy and healthy.
    • Is this making me happier and healthier?
    • Is this building my capacity to to look after myself, my family & friends and do my job?
    • Is this worth the amount of time and energy I’m putting in?
  3. Do I have evidence for this?
    • I don’t have to base decisions purely on feelings/opinions: I have the skills to obtain, analyse and interpret data.
    • Is this fact or opinion? What are the facts?
    • Am I overthinking this?
    • Can I put a confidence interval for this?

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