It’s the beginning of the year, which means something similar yet something different depending on the context. Mainly, it’s a time where optimism is often at the highest point it will be for the year – we enter the year feeling like a turn of the calendar will be just the game-changing condition we need and it all gets better. So many of us think we have a clean slate, and as such hope springs eternal.
In sports, the beginning of the year – or season, as the words “year” and “season” tend to be used interchangeably – is a time when everyone’s record is 0-0 and everyone thinks they can win a championship. As the season goes on, plenty of teams fall by the wayside and that changes, especially as teams either opt to become sellers at the trade deadline (in pro sports) and/or are mathematically eliminated from contention.
The challenge, then, for us in terms of the calendar is to keep that optimism up for longer than just the first weeks and months of the year and channel that into accomplishments.
In one sense, it’s easier outside of sports, where teams will rise to the top and fall to the bottom as the season goes on based on their performance. In another sense, it’s harder, because we’re not always in direct competition with others as we try to achieve what we hope to. While a team can be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, the equivalent outside of sports is usually a little harder to define.
It helps to not see the flip of the calendar as mandating a change in what you’re doing. New Year’s resolutions may be popular, but one need not wait until January 1 to adjust or pivot if such is warranted. Indeed, if you enter a new year with big plans and being very ready to accomplish them, they are bound to be the product of planning and related actions that came before the calendar rolled over. Additionally, by now many of those New Year’s resolutions are already starting to fall by the wayside, as it’s well-known that many of them don’t last long.
All of this establishes that two great ways to keep the optimism up are to get early victories and view first-hand the potential that is out there.
The past week saw multiple occasions where these came into play, and each was immensely energizing. In two cases, it involved seeing the potential of something I am part of. The desire is to do big things, and to that end many things are being put on the table and those involved have the ideas and methods to make them happen. In one case, it’s a program that has only been around for a matter of months, so this is certainly not the product of the calendar flipping over and wanting to make things better – this has been in the works for a while.
One thing that a new year does is reset a lot of things, and many people and organizations understandably plan by the calendar year. As such, many meetings and discussions to kick off the new year are being held right now, with the usual high hopes but also the knowledge that those alone don’t translate into the hoped-for results. Even so, much of what is discussed has been in the planning for some time, often for months at the very least.
In one other instance this past week, there was a case of getting results. I had to put together two previously planned educational sessions a little sooner than expected, and that went about as smoothly as possible. I was excited about the possibility of doing them, but actually getting them done felt even better – energizing, really. As I did each, I couldn’t help but feel like this is just the beginning, that there is much more that can and will be done. I had done one of the sessions in another setting before, but the other was all new, so naturally one came more easily than the other. Even so, as I did the new one I felt like I could do it many more times and, of course, improve it. It also firmed up my desire to add one more such session to the mix that has been on my mind.
For months now I have felt like so much is possible. To be sure, this is a challenging time, with the pandemic still around although hopefully not far from ending in terms of its most damaging impacts. All the same, with challenge comes opportunity, and likewise when the goal is to keep growing and making things better no matter the situation. As I reflected before, 2020 was a great year personally through all the challenges on the soul, and I felt 2021 could be even better. The first couple of weeks have done nothing to alter that, and by seeing what is possible more concretely and even getting an early success, you can not only keep that optimism that comes with the start of the year alive and well, but make it grow and let it carry you to better results.
We’re a couple of weeks into the new year, but it feels very much like it did at the beginning. It’s like being 2-0 while feeling the same unbounded idea when everyone was 0-0.