2022 Again

 

Friday the 7^th of January, 2022. It is the first Friday of the year and once again we have a piece to read. When I sat down to think of the best way to start the year, I could not look any further than the thought of offering some unsolicited ideas on how you could make the best out of your year. Have I become a motivationist? Probably. All in all, I am at the point in my life where I believe that in as much as we love to discuss non-issues we should spend a bit of time talking about things that matter, somewhat. Here is my attempt at starting such a conversation.

I will start where I left it off in the last article by reminding you to plan your year. If you are to ask me, I probably have written 3 or so articles about making plans at the beginning of the year, constantly reviewing the progress and evaluating at the end of the year. Some of you may wonder if I actually do it, but if you have been following the articles you will know that this is a tradition I have been following for the past 5 years save for 2019 when I decided to set out on the voyage of life without a guiding compass in the form of a yearly blueprint. Guess what happened? Midway through the year I was forced to go on and buy a diary to keep life in check. I had been all over the place and things were not working.

Some of you may wonder what a plan can help with in the modern day world where everything is unpredictable and depends on some factors that may be beyond our control. Some may wonder if planning actually works helps a person to achieve their results. The actual answers to those questions may not be directly provided in this piece but here is a bit of what I have learnt from experience. Having a bit of written goals or plans to which one goes back to for reference helps with focus. You are constantly reminded of what the goal for the time period is and what to do to get it. What that does in the end is to improve one’s efficiency and output, and while you may not get all the things you want done, you get to appreciate the importance of the exercise of planning and reviewing. And these plans do not have to be complicated, by the way. For my 2018 plan, I used a piece of plain paper on which I drew a confused face, wrote my goals around it and hung on my living room for me to see every day. Not a very complicated process but it worked the magic.

Second tip: after thinking of what you want to achieve, think of how you are going to do it. Now this is not something for people who are just trying to make it to the next Friday alive. If you are thinking getting a promotion, starting a family, buying a car, enriching your spiritual life and things along those lines, you may want to pay a little more attention to how you can possibly get what you want. This is the major difference between a goal and a plan. With a goal you are looking at what and with a plan you are looking at how. That makes a huge difference between people who dream and those who get it. If you want it that badly, it might be worthwhile scribbling whose number you will call, which doors you will knock down and how far you are willing to go to get something.

Some people have defined success as the continual achievement of one’s goals. With the idea that achieving goals is directly linked with one’s input, it is important to keep the energy high to sustain achievements. Most times we fail to achieve our goals because we are not consistent with our actions. Sometimes we start the new year with resolutions out of excitement and end up dropping them along the way. This lack of consistency sometimes comes because we set goals that are too radical and devoid of consideration of how gradual adjustments need to be if we are to make lasting change. Take it easy and be consistent. You are not going to give up alcohol, become vegetarian and start burning 800 calories every day to manage your weight. You are not going to suddenly cut off half of your friends for being toxic and expect life to go smoothly. Just saying. Be gradual and consistent about things.

Another thing. Consciously use the calendar to your advantage. A couple of days back a friend of mine made a social media post on how he refuses to believe that things change because of a change in numbers on the calendar. I think he made a fair point and to an extent there are a lot of people that think setting goals and having new year’s resolutions is a laughable idea. I tend to think that that is not entirely true. When well thought through, these plans and resolutions actually do pay off, but that it a story for another day. I am here to talk about patterns.

If you happen to pay attention to things, you will notice that the beginning of the year marks the beginning of the same repetitive cycle. On the social media you see a lot of chatter about school fees, people being broke, cabbages, new year’s resolutions, sober Januaries and all that. February comes with its own Valentine’s and Men’s Conference issues and March is just one of those flat months. April marks the beginning of the harvesting season after which we begin to see weddings. Those will peak around October and November at which time people start talking about village banks and Ke Dezember. If you look on the serious side of things, you will notice that there are some recruiters who follow a certain pattern, releasing calls for applications at specific times of the year. In short, there are some things that are some things that only happen in those specific times. If you want to start that seasonal business, to go to that annual festival, to apply for that fellowship… You might want to acquaint yourself with when these things usually happen and start preparing in any possible way. Save that money. Start looking for tips on how to make that application better. Don’t let predictable things surprise you this year.

If you want to go far this year, be optimistic. Work hard and smart with the belief that you will get whatever you are gunning for. If you plan to drop that resume at that company, make sure you give it the best you can with faith that you will bag the job. Fortune favors he bold. Also.. Set Standards. It is important to define what you want to be and to get because if you do not do so people will do that for you and give you raw deals. Want a spouse? Have some class. Osamangotola bola chikupuma. If you provide a service, charge your work’s worth.

Think of the wisdom that comes with the guilt from festive spending. Already some are talking of Sober January and cutting expenditure which may or may not be out of choice. For those that are doing it having chopped all the money in December are likely to get back to misbehaving with the recovery that comes with the first two salaries of the year. My suggestion? Use this to orchestrate behavioral change. If you are to have a sober January, you might as well add the 28-day February to it. Maybe you could make it 4 months or the whole year. Or just quit, really. I mean, you could do that, can’t you?

I could continue with these unsolicited opinions all day, but I guess you get the gist.

Happy 2022!