Doing Things A Bit Different This Year
What are the things you’ll do differently this year? It is all too common to begin the new year with new resolutions and forget them by the end of January, if not sooner. Habits die hard and bad habits dies hardest.
So while we are still at the beginning of January and before you hit the office running, I think it would be good to do some self reflection for the past 12 months, if you have not done so. If you have done so, congratulations. The next questions would be what’s next? Have you made plans or set goals for 2009?
I’ve been setting goals for over 10 years. Some I accomplished and many I didn’t reach. Most of the goals are business and as a result are financially related. At the same time, I threw in some goals like exercise, family time and others. Off course, no doubt, the business goals got the most attention throughout the whole year.
Over the years, even when I achieve my goals, after working hard for a year, I found myself thinking, “is this all there is?” I wasn’t satisfied. It lead me do look at goals differently. Not having goals is not an option and I think it is rather having the right goals to aim for.
I’ve read in the book of Ecclesiastes (that’s in the bible) this phrase
Then I thought about all that I had done and how hard I had worked doing it, and I realized that it didn’t mean a thing. It was like chasing the wind, of no use at all.
and I truly felt that I’m chasing the wind.
Last year I decided to do the goals differently. I wanted to have goals that are done in a biblical manner. If you have been reading my blog, you’d know that I’m a Christian by now. I made some progress to retune my way of thinking. It’s not easy having trained the brain to think in a certain way but I made progress.
I happen to pick up this book, titled “God is my CEO” by Larry Julian just around Christmas. The tag line on the front cover is Following God’s Principles in a Bottom Lie World. I’ve had this book for awhile. Just that I haven’t gotten down to reading it. It is quite light reading for most of the chapters which tells of successful business people choosing to do things according to what they learn on Sunday i.e. in the church versus what’s the normal business practice. So, instead of the usual “follow me and get what you want” book, this is quite different.
At the end there is a small section when you really get down to work. To figure out values, God’s direction and purpose, that requires time. The questions and guides also helps you to combine what is taught in the bible and at the same time, being practical about doing business or career, rather than one or the other.
I firmly believe that God has given each of us certain gift and when we make use of the gifts (be in running a business, being a handyman, a musician), we are most satisfied, and most productive. This is quite different from the current thinking especially in modelling behavior which is taught through NLP and others. The current thinking is if you want to be good doing something, then you model the behavior and thinking of an expert in the field. That’s okay if you want to play golf or some other game better but if you are technically inclined and want to be great in situations which requires a lot of people contact most of the time, no matter how much you model someone, you’ll never be as good as someone wired to be a social animal.
Anyway, check out the book and hope you dance to a different tune in 2009.
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