Happy New Year everyone!
I hope that you all had a fantastic holiday season and that you are eager and ready to tackle 2023. I know I am excited about what the year has in store!
I look forward to helping as many of you as possible achieve your career goals for 2023. Doing work that you love and excel is what allows us to flourish as a society; having more people fully engaged in their work and doing work that matters to them is critical to our collective success.
Thanks for reading. I know how valuable your attention is, and I strive to provide as much value to you as possible. Please reach out to me at tim@timparkins.com if there are particular topics you would like me to tackle.
How To Crush Your 2023 Goals Without Crushing Yourself
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The start of a new year is exciting. People are full of hope and enthusiasm for what the year might bring. But often, that enthusiasm can be misguided. People often set grandiose New Year’s resolutions. They plan to make drastic changes in their lives overnight, only to be disappointed when it doesn’t happen. It simply is not realistic that everything changes just because we changed the digits of the year.
Significant change takes time. It’s a process, not an event. Slowing down is the best way to make progress. It may sound counterintuitive, but slowing down can actually help you get more done. We all need a reminder of this (including myself!).
The benefits of slowing down.
When you slow down, your focus increases, which enables you to concentrate more on each task and complete it with greater precision. You can have a greater impact when the quality of your work increases. You’re better able to identify problems and solve them more quickly.
Slowing down helps you avoid burnout. Your career is long; avoiding burnout is key to keeping your career on track over the long-term. Racing like mad to deliver things is simply not sustainable. When you take your time on a task, you’re more likely to stay motivated and energized. You’re able to maintain your enthusiasm over a longer period, which keeps you from getting worn out and discouraged.
Slowing down can also help you build better, more sustainable habits. It’s easy to set grand goals, but it’s much more difficult to actually stick with them. When you slow down and focus on the smaller steps required to reach those goals, it’s easier to stay on track and keep going. It keeps you from being overwhelmed.
Finally, slowing down can help you stay present and appreciate the journey. Too often, people focus on the end goal and neglect the important lessons that inevitably crop up along the way. You will notice – and learn from – things that are going wrong if you aren’t racing mindlessly towards your goal, which will help you improve yourself. It will mean you’re able to appreciate the smaller victories and stay focused on the progress you’ve made.
How to go slow down when everything seems to speed up.
Slowing down can be difficult in our fast-paced world, where it’s easy to get caught up in the rush. But if you’re able to slow down and focus, the benefits may surprise you.
The key steps to slow yourself down are:
- Split your day into chunks, picking one task per chunk of time that you will focus on.
- Prioritize tasks and focus on the most important ones first. Be realistic about how much you can get done. It is much better to deliver on a few key tasks than to do what most people do, which is to jump from task to task, meeting to meeting, without ever really making progress on what is most important.
- Before you start a task, take a few deep breaths. This will help you clear your mind and focus on the task at hand. Focus is the key to true productivity.
- Don’t jump straight into a task. Instead, spend a few minutes organizing the work. People underestimate the value of planning and organizing; Try to figure out ahead of time where things are and what needs to happen. Set that up as a first step so that once you start the ball rolling, you can produce without getting derailed.
- You can also set a timer when starting a task and consciously strive to complete it before the timer goes off. This will help you pace yourself and stay focused on the task. This approach can also help you avoid distractions. It gets you to a short period where that is the only thing that you will let yourself work on.
- Take regular breaks throughout the day, even if it’s just a few minutes. If you had set up a timer for your task, taking a quick break after the timer goes is ideal. You need to give yourself some time to rest and recharge. This will help you stay energized and motivated so that you can keep going; it is like a “reset” for your brain. But don’t spend this time in front of your computer! Stand up and stretch. Take a quick walk. Change the scene.
Conclusion
Slowing down may seem counterintuitive, but it’s one of the best ways to keep you on track for achieving your goals. People rarely achieve meaning goals through occasional heroic efforts; results come instead from steady, incremental, daily progress. Over time, that progress adds up to significant results. It also helps you stay energized and motivated and reinforces your identity as someone who can achieve their goals. So, this year, attempt to slow down and enjoy the journey.
Because that journey is your life – best to enjoy it.
Quotation that I have been pondering
You may have heard the expression “the cream rises to the top”. Most people believe that to succeed in the workplace or at life, you need to “be better”. You need to be the most competent, the most intelligent, the one who really knows their stuff. So you spend a lot of time and effort trying to excel.
The beginning of a new year always feel like a time for change. This brought to mind this quote from Charles Darwin;
The pace of change in the world keeps speeding up, so the ability to adapt quickly is becoming more and more critical to excelling.
How open to change are you? What can you do to improve your ability to respond to change? These are important questions to consider.
Journal Prompt
There is so much value to regularly investing some time into journalling. It offers the opportunity to reflect deeply about what is important to you, what is working (or not) in your life, how you are feeling, and to understand yourself better.
In today’s hyper-productive world, most people do not spend enough time in introspection. As a result, they don’t actually know themselves or what they truly want.
Writing is one of the best ways to clarify thinking. When you write, you need to organize your thoughts, which leads to additional clarity. This is the reason that journalling is so powerful; you put some effort into getting clear about how you feel and what you want.
As we kick off a new year, I encourage you to spend a few minutes reflecting and writing on this week’s prompt:
Bringing your excitement and energy into your activities is one of the best ways to be effective. When you are excited about doing something, you bring your best work to the table. Excitement is a clear signal from your subconscious about what you should be doing.
Tap into that inner wisdom and see what happens.
Have a great week! And remember to slow down.
Tim
“Better is always possible.”
