New Year, New You!

Every new year is anticipated and ushered in with great pomp and pageantry - great fireworks displays with a lot of celebration- the world over. 

It is generally believed that the new year would be better and more prosperous than the previous one. Hence it is common to hear greetings and felicitations like "Happy New Year!"; "Have a prosperous new year!" etc.

But what really makes a year new? A mere shift in time from December to January? 

In reality, I have come to discover that there is no year WITHOUT A NEW YOU!

It was Albert Einstein that defined "Insanity" as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result".

The Holy Scriptures puts it this way "...but be changed and made new in mind...". In other words, to experience newness, you have to change your thinking pattern! Ask yourself, 'what am I going to do differently this year?"

So if you were not satisfied with the results of (a) particular area(s) of your life the previous year, its time to tweak somethings; to take a different approach; to do things differently, so as to get better results as this new year unfolds. And it all starts from some self-appraisal; asking and telling yourself some home truths.

For instance, in the area of finances, if you were not satisfied with your earnings last year and would like to earn more this year, the first step is to sit down and define how much you like to earn/make by the end of this year. That becomes your  DREAM/VISION for this year in the area of your finances.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of DREAMING BIG. Don't limit yourself at all at this stage. Don't settle for peanuts! If anyone deserves the best, YOU DO. So aim for the stars! And don't just leave this as a dream; work on it; work hard to make it your reality!

The next step is to break down that dream into smaller, manageable bits. Again, using finances as an example, you divide your dream income figure by 12; that is how much do you want to earn monthly? That becomes your GOAL. So if by the end of 2023, you see yourself buying or building a house at the cost of #50M but your budget is #60M, it means  that you have a monthly goal of earning #5M

With your Vision and Goals set, you need to now develop an ACTION PLAN. What do you need to do to enable you to achieve your goal of earning #5M monthly? 

• Do you need to update your skills by getting another degree? 
• What goods or service can you offer one hundred people with a profit of #50,000?
• Or one thousand people with a profit of #5000? 
• What platform(s) would enable you to reach at least 1500 people at a time?

The same principle applies to every other area of life that you want to see improved results on; from weight loss to even family planning.

A friend's display picture on social media aptly describes the process

I could not agree more!

Incidentally, a new year began for me yesterday, as I marked my birthday. So I guess I'm in order to declare HAPPY NEW YEAR, HAPPY BIRTHDAY,  HAPPY NEW ME!!!