Goals are great, but New Years Resolutions aren’t.
So instead, I do New Years “themes.” I haven’t wrote one in a while, but it’s like this:
Themes focus on your behaviors while goals focus more on the outcome. Embracing a theme for the year like “risk,” “experimentation,” or “calm,” gives you a compass to guide you through the moment-by-moment choices that get tossed your way.
Think of it like the common thread behind your goals, which can help tie everything together.
Without further ado, here’s my theme for the first year of the new decade:
Take FULL Ownership Of My Results
This entire concept came from the book, “The Big Leap,” by Gay Hendricks.
He asked in the book:
“Where in my life am I not taking full ownership?”
Ouch.
That’s when I realized I still wasn’t taking full ownership of many areas of my life. Sure, I had good habits and stuff. But I wasn’t taking COMPLETE OWNERSHIP over my success and results.
That’s not to say that “everything is my fault.”
(That would be false and overly punitive.)
It’s not really about “fault” or “blame” — it’s about taking control of my life.
For example, if I don’t like my results in something, I — and no one else — am responsible for getting myself out of it.
If I don’t like where I’m at, I have to change it.
If I don’t know something, I have to go find that education or find that teacher, mentor(s), tribe, etc. If I’m not doing something, I have to do it. If I can’t do it, I have to find someone who can. If I’m wrong, I have to admit I’m wrong. If I don’t have enough time, I have to make time. If I don’t have the right behaviors or I’m meeting a lot of resistance, I have to change my environments.
Health. Wealth. Dating. Travel. You name it, I need to OWN IT.
Sure, things will happen outside of my control. But everything that’s within my control — such as how I react — must be under my domain.
After all, I choose every single thing I put into my body (or don’t). I choose every single person I talk to (or don’t). I choose when I sleep and wake up. I choose how I spend my day.
Yeah, I could blame other factors: My past, my traumas, my stories, mean people, laziness, etc. And again, some things are out of my control to some extent. (I didn’t, for example, choose my parents, race, homeland, genetics, etc.)
But frankly, if there are things I don’t like, I can change my environment. Case in point, there were things in my previous life back in the US that I didn’t quite like so I moved.
Voilà!
Now, part of the reason why I didn’t previously take full ownership was fear.
I was scared to commit because — and this sounds horrible — if I committed 100%, work my ass off to achieve my goals, AND FAIL, it would feel rough. Not like a “failure” per se, but still like a disappointment in many ways.
Thus, it was easier to blame other reasons and only take, like, 80% ownership to protect my ego.
But the only thing this reveals is my goal has a shaky foundation.
Because in reality, it’s not about the GOAL; it’s about the GROWTH.
Because even if I didn’t achieve a goal, I can still say, wow, I learned a lot of lessons and opened a lot of doors; lessons and doors that would never exist until I took those first few steps.
And if I DID achieve it, the focus wouldn’t be on what I HAVE; it would be on what I BECAME.
So, if the goal (purely as an example) is to build a 7-figure business, then the value isn’t just with “having a 7-figure business;” the value is with BECOMING THE KIND OF PERSON WHO CAN CREATE 7-FIGURE BUSINESSES.
And I can always do it again, and again, and again, because I’ve learned it.
(That’s why it’s so important to have a goal: It gives you direction and clarity.)
It turns out that the fear of taking ownership was keeping me stuck and holding me back from giving my full effort.
But no more wasting time: I know what I want to achieve in life and I need to take full ownership of those things.
After all, the only person that’s stopping me is me.
So that’s my theme for 2020.
What’s yours?
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