At some point in the holiday season, we probably all sat alone on the porch with a warm cup of coffee and a blanket, looking back on 2016, laughing, maybe crying, maybe laughing until we cried, while recalling the highs and lows of those wonderful, chaotic 360-few days.
Boy, it flew by, didn’t it?
Rarely, however, in times of reflection, do the middle moments come to mind– the nights we ate leftovers, the car payments we made without even thinking or watching that Tom Hanks airplane movie that was as stale as the cinema popcorn.
This year, though, as you set your goals and maneuver through them, I’m encouraging you to savor the middle moments.
Here’s why:
- It’s EASY to PLAN your goals.
- It’s EVEN EASIER to CELEBRATE your success.
But, the mark of enduring champions comes from what you do in the middle moments. Take pride in all phases of your plan. Staying steady through the peaks and valleys of the year will keep you focused on your objective, whereas allowing yourself to become affected by life’s inevitable twists and turns will burn you out.
Got it, Genny. Now, how can I make sure I don’t lose my focus and stay hungry in the middle moments?
Be Specific with Your Goals
Break your goals down into definitive objectives. Be as specific as you can here, and concentrate on building a progressive plan, meaning that ticking off one box makes it easier to tick off the next and so on.
If you’re broad with your ambition, then your range of error increases. Remember Mel Gibson’s infamous line in The Patriot, “Aim small, miss small.”
Measure Your Progress
Include specific measures to track your progress through the life of your plan. This may even cause you to increase the specificity of your goals – see what I did there?
We’re talking marathons, here, and when the roadblocks turn up, knowing where you stand in relation to your time allotment will tell you if it’s time to sprint or cruise.
Develop Accountability
Most people either don’t make a habit of their New Year’s resolutions or, worse, they start to compromise on them. Don’t compromise! That is the easiest habit to develop. It may start with a simple settlement, but before you know it, a year has gone by, and you’ve barely moved.
Don’t let yourself fall into that vicious cycle. Find a peer or group of peers, and make a pact to hold one another accountable. Find a mentor. Find a protégé. Keeping your goals and ambitions to yourself can leave you feeling alone.
Create a burning desire to accomplish your goals. Without that, prepare for mediocre results.
The funny thing is, really, the middle moments make up 99 percent of the year. So, with that, let’s make a promise this year to be specific with our goals, to track our progress and hold each other accountable.
And next year, when we look back at all we’ve accomplished, we’ll smile and remember how magnificent the middle moments were, too.