New feels good. It feels fresh, it feels safe. I mean, who doesn’t want new, right? A new house, or newer car, or a new phone. New is just… in. And that makes us feel better because that also means out with the old.
However, the pressure to perform, and the urgent need to get it right this time. Peer pressures, social pressures, family pressures…. is this sometimes why we really want a new year? I mean, last year’s resolutions didn’t work, and I am still stuck in the same situation as previous. So what’s changed?
Maybe this year, we finally shake off everything old, and have the taking on of an “intentional” year for once.
So with the new year, are there new plans? Or are resolutions more of your thing? Each one of us has learned either from society or parents, how to make resolutions and despite… we continue to do this type of planning & failing annually. If you’ve lived enough years, you have probably stopped, because you now know that that’s more like dating “unmet expectations”. So then it seems, people who’d rather not do resolutions, choose instead to plan.
Ben Franklin said, “people don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan” and of course that wisdom is timeless. So let’s jump in with a guideline for you to incorporate an intentional year with purpose. This is a suggestion only, please feel free to use this or your own idea of a plan for your mission, organization, nonprofit, or family.
Listed below, there are 4 parameters for our guideline model, and of course feel free to use your own ideas if this advice seems not helpful – but choose 4 which represents the cardinal number. Making your calendar intentional is the idea of the framework. It’s NOT that we resolve to do such a list but that with intention one finds purpose in their life model.
- Buckets: You can have as many buckets as you need in your life, it’s a matter of how you intend to fill them after you’ve given them names. How much you place in each, what are the contents required for what you need to invest in each measure.
- Boxes: You could also call this section “packages”. We all get this idea as we often receive packages in our business, at our houses, etc. and we also send out packages. The question is what comes and goes inside those packages. What are the contents? What are the values of the contents, sent and received? Do they add or subtract value upon arrival or destination?
- Boundaries: Again you could name it “borders, guardrails” etc. There is a need to keep your personal, professional mission/ vision statement safe. How you establish your watch over them, while you work will matter and soon others will begin to take notice of your defined standards.
- Balloons: Only in keeping with “B’s” there should be time in which we celebrate the gift of life and attendant grace that comes with each new rising and the mercies that are freshly presented daily. I often say “best day ever” because the Lord knows our hearts’ condition at the close of each day and how we each stand in specific relation to His end. So we must ask ourselves that question “Was it? the best day ever? And did I live unto others as if it was so?”
I hope this has been some helpful encouragement for your platform. Along with this plan, you should also make a specific, yet definitive prayer. One that again fits in relation to what you feel is your purpose or position, within your family, organization etc. Ben probably should have added that the plan always fails without prayer.
