Happy New Year!
No, I’m not completely crazy, I know that it’s Labor Day weekend! But I need to go back about 350 days to get you caught up on where I’m at. I’m pretty sure that it was around Mid-September 2022, I was listening to podcasts like I normally do, and everyone was talking about the fourth quarter of the year and finishing strong. They also started to talk a lot more about the fiscal year. For some reason last year, the fiscal year kept getting mentioned more than I remember in the past. The conversation I remember hearing was that different businesses, schools or non-profit organizations have different fiscal years. A school will start their fiscal year at the start of the school year. A business may start in October, the benefit sometimes being that they don’t have to do tons of extra things in November and December to finish the year. That got me thinking, why can’t I celebrate my new year whenever I want? After very little debate, I decided that starting in 2023, I would celebrate my new year on September 3rd. Why September 3rd, some of you may be asking. Well, it’s because back in 2016, I decided to start journaling. The day I started was September 3rd. For me, that was the start of doing daily habits to try and improve myself. I took things that were important to me that I was doing occasionally, and I started doing them every single day. Since then, I have added other habits, including taking vitamins, daily affirmations and of course, reading. I strongly believe that doing those small things everyday led me to want to learn more and do more. Trying to improve myself led me to trying to figure out how to make a website. So, in my mind a decision way back in 2016 led me to be here today. After that kind of long introduction, let me finally officially tell you “HAPPY NEW YEAR!”.
Obviously, the new year comes with high expectations and new ideas. So, what is going to change and how am I going to change it? Good questions! I want to start off with a focus word for the year. My choice is going to be the word “Intentional”. I am going to be very intentional on the things that I want this year and the things I want to change. The first thing I need to do is to follow my own advice and really look at some of the things that I have written about. In 365 days from now, I want to be very clear on who my five people are. I want to be a part of a group of people who continue to push each other to improve. I want to know that I have five people that I am in alignment with. I feel like I have been stuck on the number three for a very long time, so if you want to throw your name in for the two remaining spots, let me know.
One of my struggles over the last year has been work. I have been there a very long time, but I feel like this year was a very big year of transition. I never want to be one of those people who is mediocre for a period of time and instead of owning it, they have an excuse for everything that isn’t going their way. This is the year that we work together as a team and prove that we are the best. I think the other thing that must be mentioned is that we must do it our way. I want to find a way that all our personalities are combined to create an unstoppable force that people look at and are forced to either admit how great we are, or not say anything but change how they do things to match up.
That leads me to the health conversation. In order to do things that no one else is doing or able to do, I must be healthy enough to do them. You would think that a few years ago I would have learned my lesson that I need to get healthier, but I guess I chose to ignore those issues. So now the time has come when I need all that energy and it isn’t available to me yet. I need to be intentional about eliminating some unhealthy habits that are preventing me from being who I should be.
The last thing that I want to touch on is personal goals. I don’t want to take anything away from work, but I hope everyone’s main goals in life don’t just revolve around work. I really enjoy writing online and I hope that in a year from now the goals I have set for myself about having an online presence happen. You don’t start writing like this unless you plan to make a big impact. It may not happen overnight, but I want to be a whole lot closer when I celebrate next year.
I want to challenge everyone out there to be prepared for a big year. Maybe it’s a few months away in January or maybe you want to come up with a random date and make that the start date. Just go be intentional about what you want to do and who you want to become. I don’t want anyone to be sitting in the same place they are right now a year from now. Write down some really solid goals you have for yourself and choose to make it happen.