It’s New Year’s Day, 2015, and you might be wondering why I’m blogging today.
Well, I know a lot of you are home, with family, maybe relaxing for the first day in a long time. You’re probably checking your emails because you might have been up dancing a little too late, or you did a bit too much celebrating.
Whatever the reason, I have a thought for you.
I can think of no other single event that will be more important to your business this year than setting a large goal, a lofty Resolution, for you to achieve in 2015.
The reason this is so important is when you set a huge goal, it makes you stretch and step outside your comfort zones. A goal like this will help prod you to achieve something you never thought possible. When we set a goal like this, it will pester us in the morning, jump-start us from the moment we get out of bed, and when we go to sleep, it will recirculate in our dreams
Jim Collins called them Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals, but I think of them more as goals that when I focus on them, I say to myself: “Can I really do this?”
Setting a goal like this at the beginning of the year gives all of us a starting point, from Day 1, to make the most of this new year.
But here’s the thing: In order to create a goal like this, you’ll have to make time to pull yourself away from your day-to-day operations. You will have to carve out some time from your normal routine to think, plan, and dream.
I know most of you have been going full-speed over the holidays. You must put on the brakes now. It’s the time to schedule some down time, and the creative time you need. You must give yourself permission to slow down and be introspective, to think about all that is possible for you, and this is especially important right now if you want to take your business to some higher goal, or in an entirely new direction.
I love the quote by Erich Fromm: “You have to stop in order to change direction.”
Today is that day. This is your time, the time of the year to stop, if you want to be somewhere else this time, next year.
That’s all I got! Happy January 1.
Now stop and make this your happiest New Year ever.
Jon
