I Don’t make New Year’s Resolutions

Happy New Year!

Why did Bill Gates, Tim Ferris and other highly successful people ditch New Year’s resolutions?

What new year strategies do they and others use to stay focused in the year ahead?

Bill Gates: Founder of Microsoft

Every year Bill Gates conducts his “end-of-year assessment”. He reflects on

• “What was I excited about?” and
• “What could I have done better?”

He also asks himself other questions about his life such as:

• “Did I devote enough time to my family?”
• “Did I learn enough new things?” and
• “Did I develop new friendships and deepen old ones?”

Tim Ferris: entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster and lifestyle guru

Fortune Magazine recently selected his show, The Tim Ferris Show, as their top business podcast. It has now surpassed 300M downloads.

Tim Ferris no longer sets New Year’s resolutions. Instead he does “past year reviews”. He finds them more informed, valuable, and actionable.

• Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
• Go through your calendar from this last year, looking at every week.
• Note any people, activities, or commitments that caused high positive or negative emotions. Put them in their respective columns.
• Once you’ve gone through this past year, look at your notepad list and ask “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
• Armed with this information, relabel the “negative” column so it reads “Not-to-do list.” Keep this list where you can see it to remind you of the people and things that make you miserable.
• Next, review the items in the “positive” column and schedule more of those events in the new year. Start booking events with friends and pre-paying for activities and commitments that you know will bring positive outcomes.
• “Get the positive things on the calendar ASAP,” Ferris wrote, lest they get crowded out by noise and distraction. “It’s not real until it’s on the calendar.”

Siimon Reynolds: Co-Founder of Photon Group

Siimon Reynolds does a short exercise. He allocates 10 minutes to ask himself the following two questions:

1. What are the top 3 areas of my business where I really need to lift my standards?
2. In each area, what’s the one best way of doing it?

This exercise works well because it increases your clarity. It also doesn’t overwhelm you with a huge To Do List (that often never gets done). You end up with a small handful of actions that will make a difference to your business success.

US ‘Shark Tank’ investor Robert Herjavec

“I live and die by my calendar.” Robert Herjavec has an end-of-year ritual that sets him up for success: organising his calendar for the whole next year.

”It allows me to manage my time and priorities.”

He said planning 12 months ahead of time maximises his productivity.

“It doesn’t mean that everything on the calendar needs to be locked in,” he said, “but it gives me an idea of where I’m going to be, and when, so I can get the most out of my time.”

“Set aside time to do a full calendar review six months or a year out to make sure you are on track with your yearly goals as well,” he told Fortune Magazine in 2015.

I hope you have enjoyed these insights. Have a great week and stay growth-focused!

Best Wishes,
Jonathan
+61 (0) 408 748 980
jonathan@scaleupgrowth.com.au