Wade Houston Wishes You a Happy New Year!

The start of a new year is nearly always fun. It's like getting to play in fresh fallen snow. There are hardly any tracks. You get to make a new start and perhaps carve a different path from the year just past.

It's also a time for reassessment and goal setting. I know many people who have given up setting resolutions because they failed to keep them in the past. By not setting new resolutions, they avoid one more thing that would make them feel like failures. I understand, but there is a cure for that. Set more REALISTIC resolutions. Make a small short resolution you know you can keep. Then, build upon your successes.

I have been seriously considering attempting to become proficient in Spanish. I studied the language in high school and again in college, but like many skills, you lose what you don't use. I never got comfortable with the language because I was too shy to practice it among people who spoke it. If I had done so, I believe I would be bilingual today. Should I make developing a comfortable proficiency with Spanish a resolution for this year?

I see some problems with that idea. First, it is frightening. For me, it's a huge goal. Second, it puts me outside my comfort zone. Third, it is difficult for me to quantify. What is a "comfortable proficiency"?

It is this last item that actually would make the resolution a real challenge to keep. To stay motivated to achieve a particular result, goals need to be measurable. Otherwise, it is difficult to know how to adjust your course. Big goals especially need to be measurable so you can break them up into smaller mini goals.

What I know I can quantify is my time. I can determine certain steps to take that would move me toward the objective. I can also establish realistic minimum standards for how much time I will spend each week on those steps.

For example, I could resolve to spend at least seven hours per week working to become proficient in Spanish. By not setting the resolution as an every day thing, it allows for the variables of life that intrude into my schedule. However, it is obviously attainable by spending one hour every day on the effort. It means that if I miss a day, I know I need to make up for that on the other days of the week to stay with the seven hour per week target.

Now, seven hours per week is probably not going to achieve the final objective in the course of a single year. However, it would certainly put me further along than I am now. Additionally, I am not prohibited from putting in more time and effort. Keeping the bar high enough to require focus but low enough to be within reach should enable me both to make progress and to avoid discouragement.

May your New Year dreams and aspirations find their way into reality (as long as they are not in conflict with my own).

That's Wade's two cents.

Wade Houston
January 1, 2008