New Year’s Resolution ‘25

As the new year approached, he began thinking about possible resolutions. He considered the perennial favorites—some weight loss, improving personal finances, reducing stress and anxiety, making more time for family and friends, and engaging in a new activity. With varying degrees of success, he had tried all of them. 

Reflecting on past resolutions he realized they were all about him—his health, his finances, his emotional wellbeing, his relationships, his life style. For the coming year, he decided to change that focus. He’d look to see how his actions and his words might improve his piece of the world and enhance the lives of people with whom he shared it. 

He liked that resolution as a strategic goal, but he needed a tactical action plan to make it happen. During some research, he found what he needed. It was a book on personal leadership insights with suggestions for making them actionable.  It offered one for every day of the year. He settled on ten. He made copies of his list and put them places where he’d see them every day. He wanted to keep the process purposeful, focused, and doable. The combination of a simple insight with an equally simple suggestion for action suited him well.

Here is his initial list:

1. Like you, most of the people you’ll encounter each day are doing the best they can to make it through their day.Give them the space they need and a measure of tolerance. When you do, you‘ll likely be surprised how much more space and tolerance others will show you, as you try to make it through your day.

2. Stop lying, or at least cut back! Every time you lie, particularly if you do so for some self-serving, deceitful, orhurtful purposes, think of it like adding a brick to a wall between you and others. Truthfulness adds bricks to a bridge of trust between you and others. Whether your words build bridges or walls is up to you.

3. When you’re with someone, try really being with them. Life is full of both internal and external distractions thatinterrupt your ability to focus on and make the most of interpersonal time. When distractions intrude on your relationships, recognize and acknowledge them, then commit to reconnecting when they’ve passed.

4. View your daily, casual interactions as opportunities to enrich the lives of others and yours at the same time. Greeting someone with a smile, holding a door, waving someone on at an intersection, or a kind compliment, can change the tone and temper of a person’s day. At the same time, such exchanges can brighten your day as well.

5. Show deference to everyone irrespective of their station in life. Feeling superior based on your accomplishments, possessions, position, education, or other such measures diminishes you. Allowing any sense of superiority to affecthow you treat others lessens you even further.

6. Forgive someone, set them free, and enjoy the peace you’ll discover. Forgive yourself, set yourself free, and enjoythe peace you’ll discover.

7. Don’t assume that you can understand how others express their free will. Free will plays out differently in everyone. Assuming that you know what motivates the thoughts, words, and actions of others can destroy interpersonal understanding. It’s also condescendingly rude. You’re not a mind reader; don’t try to act like one.

8. If what you’re about to say or write is rational, has some beneficial purpose, and is true, at least to your knowledge, by all means proceed. If it doesn’t or isn’t, by all means have the good sense to pause and enjoy a little quiet time.Nobody’s every thought must, should, or deserves to be shared.

9. Give freely without expectations that your benevolence will be repaid. If you offer help and assistance in the hope of being repaid, you’ll often be disappointed. If you offer aid and comfort without the thought of repayment, doing so can be it’s own rich reward, regardless of whether you’re ever thanked or not.

10. Grow your awareness and sensitivity of injustice, inequality, and suffering by imagining it in the life of someone you love and care about. When you do, you make it personal, and you open your mind and your heart to the plight of others. Therein lies the essence of empathy—an understanding and appreciation of others.

He had a great year! What he experienced was revealing, empowering, and transforming. As you start another new year, you may want to consider his model.  Offering a little boost to someone could make their life a little brighter, a little easier, a little kinder, and a little more fulfilling. At the same time, it makes the world you share a better place!