A Fresh Start

January: the month of diets, gyms filled to capacity, joggers and ex-smokers. All of which are a good thing, don’t get me wrong. What people are doing is using the first of January as a fresh start. Another attempt to break bad habits and begin new ones. It’s a good use of a day in the diary and one I applaud.

But one that comes with a health warning. One that I am sure you are all familiar with.

You see it’s the classic mistake we all make – generally we are not naturally good at setting goals and targets for ourselves. We make them too big for a start – unattainable. And we often make too many. This means we don’t have the focus that would be so helpful for achieving them.

Usually they aren’t very specific – so we can’t really tell if we have reached them or not. And then they either don’t have a timed end – or it’s too far off.

For instance this year – well by February it will be a dim and distant memory so forget that.

Make your goals attainable and set short timescales in which to achieve them. And just work on one at a time. Be clear on what achievement looks like so you know what you are aiming for and can celebrate when you hit the target.

Also be aware that January is not a great time of year to be taking on big challenges: short days, cold weather and for most of us no prospect of a holiday for a good while yet. It all makes it harder, so go easy on yourself.

Why not set yourself an achievable goal with just a week or two to meet it, which you can then tick off the list and pat yourself on the back. That would give you the momentum to set another. Imagine that cumulated over the year? It would be amazing.

To sum up, goal setting must be Specific (clear on what you are trying to achieve), Measurable (how do you know you’ve achieved it), Achievable (better to shoot low and hit it than aim for the stars and never get there) Realistic (is this the right time to be trying this) and time-based (a clear timescale for achieving – and not to far in the distant as to lose heart). SMART for all those who have done professional training around this before.

But there is something else that is key – not just to achieving goals but to good mental health, living well and finding joy in life. Wow – does it really all do that? Why have I never heard of it?

Well you have, but it might not be very well used in your life.

It’s called a fresh start.

I used to play golf with my father in law. Not very often because it was painful for both of us. He was a 12 handicap (that’s good if you’re not familiar with golf). I was what can politely be described as a hacker. They say bushes have 2 uses in golf. With his prostate he regularly availed himself of the first use. The second is to find your balls, and that was mostly what I was doing.
Every now and then I would swing and miss, or clip the ball which would end up just a few metres away. He would pick it up and replace it on the tee and say ‘Take a mulligan’. In other words that shot never happened, start again.

Golf is a game won and lost in the head – and can teach many of life’s lessons if we are prepared to listen, learn and most importantly make the changes needed to the way we play this game of life.

But it is that last bit that is the biggy – we can hear the lessons, know the lessons, even teach the lessons, but are we actually going to live them out in our own lives? That’s why you still have stupid golfers, and why you still have stupid people.

Back to this life lesson – which is: use fresh starts! Take a mulligan. Forget what has just gone – put it behind you and start afresh. Not letting the failures of the past impact the success of the future.

New Years’ resolutions are not a great idea. A year to have a crack at self-improvement puts a lot of pressure on you to make it count! We also have months – Stoptober is an inspired idea to give another focus to people trying to give something up – and we have Mondays: this week is going to be better than the last!

As a teacher I would even hit the restart button in the middle of a morning (something I’ve done as a parent as well). You know the situation – little Johnny is winding you up, everyone is doing the opposite of what they should be doing and you are beginning to sound like Basil Fawlty as you tell the class for the umpteenth time to settle down and get back to work. I would go outside, take a deep breath and start the day again. Maybe changing my expectations, reviewing the outcomes that I will accept and generally creating a new narrative that doesn’t involve any serious injury to a minor.

The idea that we can hit reset, and change the narrative – or story – that we are creating for ourselves, is a powerful one. Whether it refers to your day, your week, your year or even your life. And we can do it as often as we like. There are no rules here: it is our life to manage as we choose so if you want twenty fresh starts a day then so be it.

Addicts will often set their watch to chime on the hour, giving them a fresh start every hour. Every hour a recovering addict can stop, remind themselves of the 12 steps and recite the serenity prayer, ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can change, and wisdom to know the difference.’ That’s powerful stuff.

So by all means go into 2021 with a new resolution – I am have one myself – but I encourage you to avoid being over-ambitious and don’t be disheartened if your ‘rebirth’ doesn’t come as quickly and dramatically as you had imagined it might. As we say in this business ‘people make small changes slowly’. The real power to change comes in the understanding that every moment is an opportunity to change, to restart, and to shape your destiny. Often not in grand gestures and big decisions, but in small day to day, hour to hour ones, and the important thing is don’t give up not giving up!