What to do at year’s end

Last week’s markets fall vindicated me of sorts, since two years ago I predicted a downturn in 2018… and a recession. Had the year gone by without a significant downturn everybody and their brother would be screaming at me and tell me I wasn’t cheerleading for Trump or something.

But we’re not here to talk about the markets. We’re here to talk about you. At the start of the year I gave you my take on New Year’s Resolutions (Part I and Part II). If you’ve read those, you’ll know I don’t think in terms of yearly goals/accomplishments, because I prefer to work by the hour and, by extension, by the day. Let the hour be the measure of your mastery. 8760 hours in the year. There’s so many of them, you couldn’t fit them in a bag if you tried. Working with the hour (or minute) timeframes gets rid of the excuse “not having the time to___”.

Assuming you made certain yearly goals (and again, I am against those) and you’ve met only part of them, let’s say, 60%, or a specific area (i.e.: financial) came up short…what do you do ?

If you continue to work on a yearly-based goals..do you keep them, change them, or what ?

Do you have a sensitivity model for your goals ? Meaning a least/base/fantastic model ? Some people have those…like financial spreadsheets. Of course, that doesn’t work for “take a trip to Greenland” type-of-goals, you either took the trip or you didn’t. But sensitivity models would work for financial, or even skills-type of goals. (i.e.: my skills at golf, how often I played golf this year. Just make sure it isn’t how many tweets I’ve send or some nonsense).

If you’re working with yearly goals instead of fluid non-timely goals (which I prefer), the most important thing is not to beat yourself over the head over the goals that you did not accomplish this year.

When I talk about compressing time, it’s really about excluding linear time. The only time is NOW. You have no LOSSES. “Reflecting back” over last year’s is what losers do.

People take out the trash every day (every week) as it gets filled. Do the same thing…with everything.

It is the end of this year. Perhaps you take out things you no longer need to the local charity. These things were just sitting gathering dust in the garage. You need to take out of your life everything that’s been gathering dust.

Clean. Trim. Remove. Dispose.

And so it is with the goals you haven’t met. Say goodbye. (BTW, I’ve never met anyone who accomplished all of their goals. They either came up short or exceeded).

Remove the people, places, and situations in your life that didn’t go as you intended. Remove the distractions. Trim the deadbeats that don’t return your calls, emails and proposals. You must remove the people who are there in your life only for the joyrides. (That’s a biggie !) Whoops, you’re talking about my girlfriend, Max. If that’s the case, you know what to do.

Goals for the New Year must be new. If you didn’t make $ 103,230 in the old year, set a new goal for the new year. It can be higher or lower. Notice that is has to be specific (can’t be I’ll make 6 figures income next year). But to make any kind of goals, you must first be a good gardener.

Good luck in your gardening adventures and Merry Pitmas !