Recharge, Reboot, Reflect, Then Charge

It's near the end of the year and everyone has already drawn their attention onto their lofty goals for the next year, 2012.  Prior to jumping into the new year too early try to recharge, reboot, and reflect first.

Recharge your batteries before you start a new journey.  Take some time away from your stressors to allow yourself to recharge.

Reboot, clear your head, remove those cobwebs.  A lot has happened over the last year and it is time to remove the clutter before beginning a new year.  Restructure what occurred over the last year and organize this information into a clear outline or summary before adding more information to the mix.

Reflect on your achievements, failures, and learning.  Look back on your biggest achievements of the past year and pat yourself on the back, smile, and take pride in what you have accomplished.  Reflect on your failures over the past year and ask yourself what you have learned from the experience, if this was to happen again I would…  Over the course of the year we have learned a lot of knowledge.  Take time to outline your knowledge into easy to remember categories; either chronologically, or by location, or by content.  Organizing your knowledge is the best way to assure that that knowledge can be recalled when needed.

Now it is your turn to charge into the next year.  But wait, first you need to set obtainable goals, not unobtainable goals that will only leave you disappointed at the end of next year.  Set goals on two different levels: easy to obtain but necessary goals, and hard to obtain but intrinsically beneficial.  Necessary but easy goals are those that you know you have to do but may not like doing them.  These are goals because you have to schedule your time to do them; work tasks, exercising, cleaning, yard work, reading a book a month/week, submitting a journal article, etc…  Set harder to obtain goals that are internally worthwhile to achieve to you, not for the benefit of anyone else.  These goals could include enrolling in college, taking a vacation, volunteering your time, starting back at church, applying for that new job or promotion, etc…  The point is to set easy and hard goals, but none that are unobtainable, be realistic.

Now that you have recharged your batteries, rebooted your memory banks, and reflected on your achievements and failures, you are ready to take the first steps toward achieving your goals for the next year.  Good luck, and remember, you don't need luck when you have planned properly.