One Word Alternative to New Year’s Resolutions

“Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”  Mark Twain

If New Year’s resolutions work for you, that’s great. As for me, while I may not be as cynical about them as Mark Twain was, I’ve always found they are less than useful for me.

But I still think the beginning of a new year is as good a time as any to assess how we are travelling, in business and in life, and to give ourselves a bit of a gee-up.

There’s goal-setting, of course, and some people are very diligent about that at this time of the year. But for me the prospect of goal-setting over a time of festivities and in a holiday mood is always a bit of a challenge.

I’m always looking for a simpler way of doing things or at least a simpler way of organizing things to be done and achieved.

Which is why I’m glad I joined some friends just before Christmas, playing the Conversations® game, because out of that emerged my word for the year ahead. 

The word is Exceptional. 

I wasn’t sure at the time how that would play out in practice. I just knew it felt right.

Since then I have been able to tease out the basis of a strategy for 2013, around that word.

Elements of that emerging strategy are:

• attract exceptional people as clients
• provide exceptional service
• help my clients achieve exceptional results
• create exceptional products
• go beyond ok to being exceptional in business and life
• play a bigger, exceptional game

The word still feels right for what I want to achieve this year.

And as a regular reminder, I’ve written it on the back of a business card and propped it on my computer stand so I am seeing it constantly. (I know, very high tech, but it’s working).

So if you had one word to guide you and help you focus on what you want to achieve this year, what would that be?

And if you want to play, here are some suggestions to help you get started:

• Focus
• Discipline
• Service
• Determination
• Success
• Freedom
• Deliver
• Lead
• Complete
• Ship (vb)
• Convert (from connection to sale, etc)

I hope you will share your word. (Of course, you could have resolutions and/or goals as well.)

Whatever word you choose (or don’t) I wish you a healthy, happy and highly successful 2013!

Des Walsh

Business coach and digital entrepreneur. With coach training from Coachville.com and its Graduate School of Coaching, and a founding member of the International Association of Coaching, Des has been coaching business owners and entrepreneurs for the past 20 years. Over the same period he has also been actively engaged in promoting the business opportunities of the digital economy. He is a certified Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) coach, and a certified specialist in social media strategy and affiliate marketing.