Usually, when the day is over, I reflect on what I have accomplished and experienced. I do the same thing when the year is turning.
Did I achieve what I had planned for the year? Did I make an effort to improve myself in a moral, professional, social, or personal aspect? Am I the same person that I was same time last year?
In just a few minutes, a new beginning will be dawning. Two kind of goals will be listed: the new ones (fresh, unattempted goals) and the old (the undone goals). Between the two, which list of yours do you think will be longer?
As I stretch my reflection 2 years back, the list of old goals gets longer. 3 years back, 4 years, it goes on and on.
I remember 5-6 years ago, when I was still 25-26 years old, I had envisioned myself having my own business by the age of 30. I shared this dream with my friends back in the Philippines.
Obviously, it didn’t happen. I moved here to New Jersey and everything changed. 5 years later, certain priorities had moved up the list and my standard for success became different.
Now at 31, I still plan to be my own boss 6 years from now. And while working for it to materialize, this is how I am going to play the waiting game.
Currently, my bestfriend is an on-the-rise manager; another friend of mine has started his own business; and my college mates have their own success stories. Viewing my life from the outside, some people might consider me a failure compared to them.
I’m not. I learned that comparing yourself to others will only make you unhappy, and you end up trying hard to do things that are not applicable to you, or worse, beyond your capabilities. And that will only lead to frustrations.
Golden opportunities have also been given to me and i grabbed most of them. One of which enabled me to be more socially aware, both online and in the physical world.
In the last third of the year, I learned to blog properly via planetsaedel (my previous blogs that started way back in 2003, were more of personal diaries that nobody read and were left to flounder), and this site has helped me expressed my thoughts, opinion, observations, and insights with others.
I have learned to share things about me comfortably.
Below are some of the simple goals I want to accomplish in the next 12 months. Some of these, I will explain in details as the days pass by; and some of the bigger goals, I will share in due time:
- monetize via Paid Reviews to support this blog and experiment on various niche blogs.
- learn how to dance
- smile confidently.
All things considered, I can honestly say I’m a better person, but at the same time, I don’t want to be complacent with my personal achievements. I still want to improve. How about you?
Ask yourself: Am I better person now? My answer is: You’ll never be, unless you start spending some time to reflect on your personal life and find your greatest strength.
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All relevant links in this post are my original articles. I encourage you to click and read them if you’ve missed them before. Happy New Year to all!
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Excellent thought. It is true comparing ourselves to others is pointless we are all designed so differently.
Your question “Am I a better person now?”, I think that is a difficult one to answer. I don’t think I am better in the usual sense, but I am much freer to be myself than I was for years.
I hope you meet your goals. Best wishes for the New Year
Good luck in achieving your goals and all the best for the New Year!
Oh, and thanks for submitting your articles to Resource for Bloggers Carnival.
Hi Saedel,
As Clarence said in It’s a Wonderful Life, “Remember, George no man is a failure who has friends.”
Good luck with your goals for the coming year. I’ve set some pretty high ones myself.
Happy new Year to you brother. May 2008 be a very good year for you and your family!
Reading this post got me to thinking back when I was in my 20’s, early 30’s -I don’t recall ever making resolutions and I know I never gave my “inside self” a good going over at New Years or for that matter, probably not at any other time during the year. My mind was attuned then totally to my daily activities -my job, making sure I was able to cover my expenses, what items my family needed, etc -I just had no time to think of introspective stuff. And, for the most past, my life continued on pretty much that same path until just fairly recently when I started thinking more about my inner self, peace of mind, etc.
It’s a process that changes from year to year, sometimes faster, like day-to-day. I don’t do resolutions but I do instead set up ideas of things I’d like to try but no timelines. I’ve never been good at long-range planning - too much fantasizing comes into play for me if I try that.