Whatever it is you celebrate this time of year, I hope that you’re doing it with the people that you love and care about the most and that you’re having some fun. This is one of my favorite times of year because it allows us to get a little bit quieter, to slow down a little bit, spend time with those that we cherish, love, and value.
I also love the reflection and the pause that this time of year allows for, and to take some time to reflect on all that we’ve done, experienced, accomplished in the prior year. So for all of us, that’s 2019, which is also the last year of this decade.
How has this last decade been for you, your life, your business, and your relationships? What about your career?
So I recommend journaling, very discursively, a reflection on how this last year and this last decade went. What were some of the highs, the triumphs, the wins? What were some of the lows, the challenges, the struggles? And what are the things you’re most grateful for and thankful for?
It’s a great exercise for many reasons. For one, it allows us to get closer to our accomplishments, to gratitude, to the things that we really should be holding onto, right? Not always being so hard on ourselves and not always wanting the end destination to be here quicker.
And two is it provides a great foundation for the next chapter, the next year, the next decade plan. So, if you haven’t already, start fine-tuning your plans, personally and professionally–your business plan and your life plan–for 2020 and for this next decade because we have an entirely new decade we’re starting in less than three days here, right?
I don’t know about you, but I get rubbed up about this stuff. I spend a lot of time planning, visioning, writing out strategies and roadmaps or blueprints, being very intentional, diligent, and mindful of my life, and creating everything by design.
We need to have a strong destination, a strong “why?” get us through. We need to be able to clarify and define our goals and our destination, right? How else are we going to build an adequate and effective plan to actually get there? So start with that. Get out your journal, your word doc, whatever it is, and just start to write down your vision for next year. What do you want to manifest and bring into your life?
Then let’s take this out another level. Let’s go a little bit higher. What do you want to accomplish in these next 10 years?
What are some of the milestones, achievements, and accomplishments that you want to work for and achieve next year and in this next decade? You can even go three, five, and then 10 years out because 10 years is pretty hard to conceptualize, right?
A lot can happen in 10 years, but just start there very abstractly and then break it down to more finite, more detailed, and more clarified terms. Then you’re going to want to start to build out the actual strategies, the tactics, the plan, right?
What is going to underpin this great and lofty vision? What are the resources you’re going to need to gather between capital, talent, people, technology, and skills you’re going to have to develop? Who are you going to need to become to actually deliver at this higher level? This can be several pages long and that’s okay. It should be. It should also take several days and you should be revisiting it over time.
For me, this means I’m spending the rest of the year fine-tuning my plans in each of my businesses, the strategies that support them, and getting really, really clear on my vision.
I’ll be in my mid-forties this coming decade. There’s a lot that I’m ready to bring into my life over this next decade. Because getting into the prime of my career, I am high-energy, high-intention, super focused, and I want to create a massive life of contribution, achievement, and purpose.
Get to it if you haven’t started already. Fine-tune it if you have started it. Let’s get it really, really refined.
Let’s seek and achieve clarity over these coming days and then let’s crystallize our “why.”
Let’s commit relentlessly to our vision and persevere in this next year and decade until we accomplish all of our goals and our dreams. That’s what’s going to systematically elevate our success, grow our life, and our lifestyle and contribution and impact the people that we love and care about the most.
