ACR Friends & Family,
Happy belated New Year to you all!
It’s always an exciting feeling for me to wrap up another year on the calendar and proceed optimistically into a new one. I’m sure it’s the same for many of you, but definitely for me, it’s a time of year where my mind stays constantly filled with thoughts of both past reflection and future planning.
Even as someone who enjoys spending time in reflection or planning, it can be an overwhelming exercise to look backwards over everything that has taken place during the past twelve months. At the same time, looking forward a year into the future can seem to be even more of a daunting chore.
Here’s the truth: It’s incredibly important for all of us (especially all of us leaders) to spend time focusing our mental energies on these exercises during the first and last few weeks of a year.
I’m a firm believer that if we want to improve in all areas of our lives (professionally, emotionally, spiritually, financially, physically, socially, etc.), then thinking reflectively about our past and about our future plans is an absolute necessity. We must evaluate the successes and challenges from the past and create a plan for how we want to improve in the future. In my opinion, there is no better and more natural time to do it than when we’re transitioning into the new year.
In order to truly accomplish some effective time spent in healthy reflection and planning, we must be intentional about making time to stop our busy lives and think. We must create and embrace the pauses, breaks, and quiet time in our schedules.
But who has time for quiet reflection and planning? Is it even possible? For most of us, downtime for focused thinking seems more like a luxury than a reality. Life just gets too busy to find time to stop and cut out the noise.
As you are reading this, we are already one month into the new year. Thanksgiving probably blurred right into Christmas, which quickly morphed right into February. Perhaps, the year end was so hectic that you never took the time to stop and think about much of anything besides just getting through the day.
If this is you, I’ve got some good news: You are in more control of your time than you think. You can give yourself approval to carve out some time for personal reflection and planning. You can break the cycle and change your routine. You can begin to create your future. You can make great things happen for yourself. It’s not about having the time; it’s about making the time.
Fortunately, it’s only February 1st and it’s not too late to get things going. We aren’t so far into the new year that we can’t recall our lessons from 2020. There’s still plenty of time to make big plans for 2021. My prayer is that, if you haven’t already, you will gift yourself some time to stop and think about where you’ve been and where you’re going. I can assure you that it will be a fruitful exercise for your overall personal wellbeing, and it will set you up for success in a year that has only just begun.
Mark W. Bray