Don't go big in 2024, go small...
This counterintuitive advice will start your year the way I think will lead to success.
You probably clicked on this because you are excited about this new year and you want impact. That’s good, keep that. What you need to beware of is the over-excitement that often sweeps people away at the start of the year. They set unrealistic goals, and over-ambitious targets and in so doing set themselves up for a year of chasing their tails, going largely nowhere.
New Year New Me
I mean it’s January, chances are you are feeling pumped and ready to take on a new year, achieve your goals, prove doubters wrong and so on
My goal with this ‘go small’ digital issue is not to be contrarian but to offer you a slightly different perspective to conventional wisdom and help you go faster for longer. Let’s dive in
Growing up, I always felt a strong affinity for January. It’s a chance at a fresh start and in this thing called life, we don’t get many of those. It’s the month of the new, so many people launch podcasts this month, announce book deals, queue up at the gym at 5 am, and are all ready to have a life-changing year.
So how exactly do I go small?
Well, rather than making January a month of big and new, start small. Make this month about structure, discipline and starting to take small decisions and actions that when you aggregate them will add up to a large change. In other words, make this a month of building the necessary routines and rhythm to carry you over the year.
Whilst everyone else may be flaunting their big goals, set some time aside to consider the small actions you can take to start the momentum off.
The best analogy to describe this is one I shared with my mentees not too long ago. Imagine baking a cake, when it’s in the oven, there is little you can do to change the outcome other than changing the temperature. Most of the input you will have into the cake will be at the beginning when you are adding ingredients, manipulating the batter and so on. As you do this, you are baking things into the cake that will yield the masterpiece you will later bring out of the oven.
Similarly, take time this month to ask yourself (if the cake will represent my life this year), what kind of ingredients do I want to ‘bake in’ now? What kind of traits do I want to develop this year and how do I start small?
What kind of things do you want to achieve this year? Start small
This way of thinking may be a little jarring when everyone around you is announcing big things and new things but trust me, this kind of thinking will pay dividends later. I’ve already written about the importance of small things and the compounding effect of focusing on the small.
This will make all the difference to your 2024.
Here is to an amazing year