The end is the beginning

My approach to New Year’s resolutions is to forget about the first of January. Instead of focusing on what I want to do at the beginning of the year, I find it much more powerful to look at how I’d like my life to be different by the end of the year. How would I like things to be on 31 December 2006? What are the steps I should take to get there? What are the milestones along the way?

It’s all part of beginning with the end in mind. I think this is a fantastic approach to life. If we all thought about how we were going to conclude things before we started them, we would save ourselves a lot of grief. On an international level the mess in Iraq seems to stem, in part, from leaders not thinking through the consequences of their actions.

I outline a five-step guide to New Year’s resolutions below.

I wish you all a very happy Christmas. May 2006 be a year of hope for us all.

Make time over the next few days to think about how you’d like your life to be in one year’s time. Work out what you need to do to get there. Believe you can do it, and enjoy the journey!

New Year’s resolutions

1. What are the areas of your life you’d like to be different?

Where are you in your relationships? How are things with those closest to you? How could they be different? What can you do to help bring changes about? How are things at work? How could they be different? What about your health? And the way you use your time? Be bold in the way you look at things. If you were really true to yourself, what would that mean in practical terms for your life?

2. Plan your year

Bearing in mind what you’ve come up with, what are the steps you need to take along the way to get there? If you want to be in a loving relationship by the end of the year, what should you be doing in January to help bring this about? If you’d like to be 5 kilos lighter next Christmas, what should you weigh by June? If you’d like to have a new job, how should you be using your free time in the spring?

3. Be clear

Sometimes it’s easier to hide behind general statements such as I want my flat to be tidier. If you want to have a tidier home by the end of 2006, what, specifically, do you need to do? Make a list of all the things you need clear up. There may be papers in your living room, magazines you’ve been meaning to read and foodstuffs you never use. Be clear about what you’re going to do and when you’ll do it. This is more challenging, but you’re much more likely to succeed.

4. Believe

Believe you can do it. Make yourself comfortable, relax and imagine your life as you’d like it to be. What does it look like? How does it feel? How do you look? Seeing these things in your imagination helps you to bring them about. If you expect to succeed, your subconscious will be alert to the signals that confirm you in this expectation, thus reinforcing the likelihood of a positive outcome.

5. Learn from your mistakes

Don’t see your set backs as failure. You can always learn from them. If you’ve managed to have three weeks without smoking, for example, and then find yourself smoking at a party, don’t depress yourself with the thought that you’re back at square one. You had those three weeks as a non-smoker. What did you do during that time that helped you not to smoke? What could you do to lessen the likelihood of smoking again when next you find yourself at a party? Opinions differ as to how many attempts Thomas Edison took to make the prototype light bulb. Some say he had 200 attempts, some 500, some 700. The important thing was his attitude. He persevered. When asked how he managed to keep on going after so many failures, he reportedly said “I didn’t fail; I just discovered 700 ways how not to do it.”


Use a few hours over the next few days to think about your life and where you are going. Make 2006 different and enjoy the changes!

Living in the moment

Back in August I wrote about living in the moment. I was inspired to write by my experience of playing backgammon while on holiday with my partner, Tony, in Scotland. This piece prompted all sorts of comments, many to do with the game of backgammon.

There are all sorts of gems in Louis de Bernieres’ excellent book Birds without wings. It’s set in a town on the south coast of Turkey in the early years of the 20th century, as the Ottoman Empire is crumbling and Turkey is slipping into civil war. De Bernieres has some wonderful observations about the rise of nationalism, and about religion, in what is a gripping, but tragic story. He writes about the two gendarmes who play backgammon all day every day in the village square. He says “Backgammon is a game in which the first half consists of skill, and the second half of luck, so it appeals to both the cunning and the reckless, but it is always skill that wins.” My point was that in backgammon, you can’t decide what you are going to do until you’ve thrown the dice. We could avoid much unnecessary heartache if we lived life like this. We can, and should plan. This is like the skill of setting up the pieces in a game of backgammon to put yourself in the most advantageous position. But there is a limit to how much planning we can do. So much of life depends on things which are outside our control. Ultimately we always have to see how the dice fall before we work out what to do next.

Smiling at strangers

It’s always good to get feedback. In recent months I’ve had most comments two of my articles, Living in the moment and Be Happy. I will publish my thoughts about Living in the moment next week. I deal here with the comments I received about Be Happy.

In Be Happy, I included ten tips for happiness. It was one of these, smiling at strangers, that provoked the most response. One of my correspondents told me that she had discussed the idea of smiling at strangers with her husband. He couldn’t understand what could possibly be gained through smiling at someone you don’t know. Her response was that you never knew what was going on in other peoples’ lives. A smile might be just what someone needs to help them through a difficult time.My perspective is different. I think we should smile at strangers, not because it might be good for them, but because it’s good for us. It helps to take us out of ourselves, to connect us with the world around us. My correspondent’s husband suffers from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), a form of depression that affects people during dark winter months. It’s thought to be linked to the lack of daylight. Studies have shown that spending a few minutes each day in front of a lightbox can help to lift the mood of those affected. I believe that my friend’s husband treats himself in this way.While it’s too simplistic to suggest that there’s a link, I wonder whether this man would find that he was less prone to depression if he engaged more with those around him. My experience is that those who look out, and reach out tend to be happier. Have a go at smiling at a stranger today and see what happens.