“If the question makes you uneasy or anxious, you need to own that. You need to claim that thing you want. That’s how you create change.” -Dr. Meg Jay, The Defining Decade
This is one of my favorite quotes of all time. Every time I see it, I feel a little uneasy, a little anxious, and very motivated. It’s the kind of question that makes you reflect and forces you to think about your circumstances.
But with each new year, I find myself in a position of opportunity. After all, what better time is there to start fresh? To organize new goals and milestones and to instil changes that can gently push us towards our stretch goals?
One great way to see how we’ve grown or where we might need some practice is to evaluate goals we set for ourselves during the previous year. What did we accomplish and what slipped away? Nothing is ever really a failure if we learn from it, and as they say, failures provide the best learning and growth opportunities.
As Dr. Jay says, you need to claim what you want. Change doesn’t happen by silently wishing it into existence, and in the end regret is a much more difficult feeling to live with than the initial push you need to get motivated. Think about what you want, and then work backwards to figure out what steps you need to take to get there. It may be something that takes a month to accomplish, or it may take 5 years. But either way, the time is going to pass. So why not make it memorable?