Welcome to the Tweenies or Happy New Year

On new years day I thought out loud, “ so if that was the noughties, what are we now ? The Teens ?”, my brother correctly went on to say, “ No, this is the tweenies!”.

A Tweenie being, for those of you whom aren’t aware, a pre-teen aged between 10 to 13 years. So, upon that basis – Welcome to the Tweenies!

Another thing common to New Years Day is the discussion around you’re ‘ New Year’s Resolutions ‘ – gee, the whole concept is so noughties….

Anyway, I thought to myself – I don’t have any. Should I? I feel a little weird not having any? – I went on to summarise what my current personal objectives were and shaped them into reasonable and realistic New Year’s Resolutions :

1)    Get fit before my tropical holiday in February
2)    Start guitar lessons (one year after I got my guitar)
3)    Continue my Masters Degree with Credit Average
4)    Buy some Golf Clubs and get some lessons
5)    Start house renovations

But I have many more than this – should they be so self focused ? What about my family? Supporting good causes ?

Frankly, I think New Year’s Resolutions are pretty dumb. Whilst it is good to have some broad ideas about what you would like to do – if you are going create a plan for your year then I think it is worthwhile to go through a more complete process.

My wife introduced me to the 5-Year Plan process that she used a number of years ago. I won’t go through it in huge detail now but the idea is that you:

a)    Create a 5 year plan committing to a single line of direction (not this or that)
b)    Include components like Career, Finances, Family, Spirituality, Health, Fitness and Friends
c)    Make statements on each for each year over the next 5 years

You can create this with a close friend and then you review it together regularly to keep each other on track. There are heaps of sites on the internet that refer to different approaches.

I met a woman once whom told me she wrote a 10-year plan but didn’t look at it for 10 years. It wasn’t until she was moving that she found it and decided to read through – she realised that she had achieved every single goal except the final “10. Move to live by the seaside “ – where was she moving to? The beach. She said the mere fact of writing it down is psychologically very powerful – I believe her.

Good luck with your New Years Resolution or your 5 Year Plan. Happy New Year!