Before you start mega-phoning your New Year’s resolutions and lining up at your January 1st start line to sprint towards a new reality… it’s imperative you take a look back.
How did things play out for you from 2022? 2021? 2020? Etc. Can you dig up a record (or three) of what your goals and action strategies were from then? How they played out? What you were experiencing as you went?
This exploration will give you trends and insight that could be essential to playing out 2023 differently… more strategically… better.
Side note: if you don’t have a record like this, and you think having a record like this now would be valuable, maybe it’s something you could start this year?
Main train: One of the first quotes that I remember feeling deeply impacted by, as cliché as it sounds to me now, was: “If you keep on doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve been getting.”
History may not repeat itself exactly—but, have no doubt: history rhymes.
And 2023 will rhyme with all of your other years and resolution attempts.
So, don’t forget to look back before you floor it forward. You might learn something about yourself that’ll impact your pace, direction, ambition, accountability, strategy, etc. that you hadn’t quite internalized before.
And maybe it’s that one realization that’ll actually make 2023 your best year ever.