What Do You Want 2016 to Be Like for You?

Photo Credit: mendhak via Compfight cc

I’m excited about 2016 and all the possibilities that may come with it. I wasn’t as excited about 2015 as I am now. I mean, considering all the lessons I learned in 2015, I’m thankful that I am a little bit wiser this year. Are you excited about 2016? You should be.

I know this will be a good year, I feel it in my gut. But I also know that 2016 will only be as good as we make it. Whatever good things that will happen this year will happen because of the seeds we have sown in the past years and the seeds we will sow in the early months of the year.

Habits

For 2016 to be the great year you want it to be (this is assuming you want it to be a great year), there are a lot of things you need to take note of. For one, you need to drop some of the habits habits that slowed you down one way or another in 2015. These habits may not have been bad in themselves, but you know deep down that your life would be so much better without them. As for me, the main problem I need to deal with in my life right now is the obscene amount of hours I spend online. I get the feeling that if I can deal with this, a lot of other things will fall into place.

Right now I am reading Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit. In the introductory chapter, Charles talks about a lady, Lisa, who turned her life around by deal with just one habit - her keystone habit. So that is one thing I intend to do in 2016. I will deal with my own keystone habit and focus a lot of my strength on cutting down the hours I spend on the internet. A keystone habit is one that many other habits depend on. If you can change this keystone habit into something good, you will, in effect, be positively changing a lot of your bad habits. But you should change/get rid of just one keystone habit at a time. That’s what the book says.

So, what about you? What keystone habit do you want to deal with in 2016? Think about it before reading any further.

Planning

The next thing we need to consider about 2016 is our plans. Our plans and goals. As much as I am not a fan of making new year’s resolutions (because they hardly ever work for anyone), I must say I find one thing about them applaudable. People who set new year’s resolutions are indirectly saying that they have identified problems, weaknesses or ineffectual areas in their lives that they know need positive change. I’d take this knowledge any day and any time over not being willing or able to recognize or acknowledge I have problems and weaknesses.

The truth about planning is that it is no guarantee for success. But it is important nonetheless. Planning helps you have an idea of what you would do if things go the way you hope they would. Of course you know that things hardly go the way we want them to, because, you know, life’s a beach (to put it mildly) but that shouldn’t deter us from making plans.

A good plan usually takes a long time to come up with. It requires a lot of thinking, drafting and redrafting, and it requires creating lots and lots of alternatives.

So, if you don’t already have a plan for how you will tackle 2016, it’s best you get to that now. Don’t be that guy or girl who throws their hands up in the air and says “Oh screw it! What’s gon’ be gon’ be.” No please. Whatever will happen to you will be, largely, because of what you hope [and keep hoping] will happen. So make plans that will turn your hopes into reality. You will be better for it.

I have found that writing down my plans makes me feel a lot better. It makes me feel like I have an idea what I’m doing with my life, even though sometimes I don’t. Also, I try to go over my plans [and goals] as often as possible. Because no good plan should be set in stone, I always leave room for change. This way, if I’m caught off guard by something, hopefully, it doesn’t have too big an impact on the plans.

One more thing, might I suggest you categorize your plans (read: goals). Have a plan for your finances, your spiritual affairs, your social life and network, your career or academics, and so on. I think this will help you better put things into perspective.

Action and Inaction

For any of your plans to bear fruits, you will need to execute them. Good planning requires corresponding action or inaction. Knowing when to not do anything is as important as knowing when to do something. Some of your plans will require you not to act while others will.

When acting on your plan [or when doing other stuff in general], remember that you reap what you sow. Maybe not all the time, but most of the time. And you will never be sure which of your deeds will bring you the biggest harvest (bad or good). So be good this year. By doing good to yourself and the people around you, you are making the world a much better place.

Speaking

This is not the part where I tell you to wake up and say some affirmations or make some confessions and stuff like that. I don’t even do it.

This is the part where we talk about whether you should share your goals and plans with people or you shouldn’t. I watched a TED Talk Video yesterday that talked about not sharing your goals with people until you have accomplished them. Also, I’ve been seeing people tweet stuff like this.

My opinion is this: for some people (like me), talking to other people about their goals helps them summon some courage and motivation to pursue them; this doesn’t work for everybody. In that video, Derek Sivers mentioned some psychological backing for his point. That’s all well and good. But I’m also sure that I can find psychological backing that will tell us that sharing your goals with people can also help you achieve them.

What does this tell us? That we are human beings and that we are all different. We can’t all do things the same way. We don’t all have the same psychological processes.

So my advice is this: find what works for you and embrace it. If talking about your goals will give you some sort of motivation and help you to be more accountable, then go ahead and do that. And if keeping your goals to yourself is what works for you, that’s fine.

A lot of things will happen this year. And they won’t all be good. But what will matter most in the end is how well we are able to take all our experiences and learn from them to become better people.