New year, fresh start

I love new year and all that it reminds us about the possibility of fresh starts and new beginnings – how God’s grace is continually poured out on us and his Spirit empowers us to begin again or work with him again on some stuff we’ve forgotten.

Don Miller in this blog on Reputation vs character issues a timely reminder that the start of a new year is an opportunity to focus on what matters – and that building character is much more important than building our reputations.

For (young) leaders a new year is a perfect time to recommit to developing the gifts and abilities God has given us – for the sake of those we serve. HBR have an excellent piece on 5 resolutions for aspiring leaders. The first two – find a mentor and form a leadership development group are at the heart of what we are doing through Tempo (now recruiting for a new Dublin group).

New year resolutions are something I’m not so hot on as they don’t tend to last. However, this article from the99percent takes a really helpful approach and recommends simplifying your approach to reflect, select and remove.

Reflecting on the year that is past, on what went well, on the difficulties, on what we have learned is a crucial aspect of leadership growth and a discipline I struggle with as an activist. Select refers to choosing a few simple goals that are specific and achievable to focus on. I found this really helpful as I chatted over dinner with my wife last night about what mine might be and we agreed 3 together. Lastly remove. Stopping doing something is difficult but to quote a leader I once interviewed “my noes give value to my yeses”. Many of us are simply doing too many things to do them well. Maybe this year we should choose one or two things that we fill focus on doing excellently and stop doing other things to enable that to become reality.

 

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