New Year’s Resolution: Reinventing Yourself for 2019

Conquering Your Everest!

Before formulating new resolutions for 2019 and before trying to reinvent yourself, you need to stop and make sure that you are in good health, personally and professionally. In fact, many of us will go to the doctor once a year for a full physical. Why? To make sure that we are staying healthy, or to discover any health issues that we need to address before they become serious problems.

Likewise, as professionals, we need to gauge our professional health. Once a year we need to take stock and ask the right questions:

·        Where am I today in relation to my resolutions set forth on January 1, 2018?

·        What did I accomplish in 2018?

·        What did I do right?

·        What did I do wrong?

·        Did I succeed in reaching all my goals for the year? Why? Why not?

·        Am I happy with myself?

·        Have I taken care of myself and my family?

·        Did I learn new things and have I upgraded my skills in 2018?

·        Did I keep abreast with all the changes in my industry and the global environment?

·        How was my performance?

·        Am I happy with my performance? Was I productive? Was I promoted?

·        Have I built new relationships that helped me personally and professionally?

·        Am I growing in my career? Is my career on track?

·        Am I growing as a person?

·        Did I have a trustworthy team around me that cared for my success?

·        Did I reach out to help others in my company and my community?

The answers to the above questions are just the beginning. They give us our pulse. They gauge the temperature of our professional health. They tell us the height and weight of our accomplishments.

Now we need to proceed to the doctor’s room. We need to have a serious conversation and delve deeply into the results. We need to reach the right diagnosis for any health concerns so that we can receive the correct prescription, remedy, or advice.

Many fail to accomplish their resolutions because they fail to plan. As the saying goes: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Others, fail because they do not have a strong WHY—a reason to keep them focused and on track. To them a resolution is just a fad that fades with the passage of the days. To them, resolutions are goals that need to be reached yet forgetting that goals need plans to be reached. Yet, others fail because they do not have the discipline, skills and determination to succeed. Thus, resolutions become daunting, like trying to scale Mount Everest alone and unprepared.

Scaling Mount Everest teaches us key lessons. To scale it and reach its peak, it requires:

• Planning and preparation
• Acclimatizing, adapting and adjusting
• Having a Big Hairy Audacious Vision (BHAV—The Peak) and Small Less Audacious Goals (SLAGS). The small goals are the milestones to reach the summit
• Having a team around us that can help us, cheer us, and protect us
• Having Sherpas and guides, mentors and coaches, that lead the way to the summit
• Having a strong focus, common sense, commitment, will, and determination to persist and succeed
• Having the right tools
• Climbing, climbing, and climbing until the summit is reached

The Pyramid of Success

Before formulating new resolutions for 2019, and attempting to conquer your own Everest, to ascend your Pyramid of Success, you need to start by knowing self, yourself. You need to:

1. Examine your actions in 2018?

• What did you do?
• How did you do them?
• What were the results?
• Did you accomplish your goals?
• Who helped you to reach your goals?
• Why the gaps?

2. Know your S2 [Self X Skills]

• Determine your personality & leadership style
• Determine your brain’s hemispheric dominance
• Determine your learning style
• Determine your strengths and weaknesses
• Determine your skills and tool box

         i.     Technical

         ii.     Functional

         iii.     Social, i.e. EQ

Once you have performed a complete inventory on yourself, ask:

1. Do I understand others in a way to leverage mutual strengths?
2. Do I easily accept change? Or am I reluctant to change?
3. Am I flexible, adaptable, teachable, and agile?
4. Do I have a detailed plan, a process, a system, and the tools to help me reach my goals and resolutions?
5. Do I have a rhythm that keeps me marching towards my goals?
6. Do I have a mentor and an accountability agent that keeps me on track?

The above will help you to ascertain where you are now so you can plan for where you want to go—your resolutions, your goals—in 2019. And goals have to be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely). So never try to achieve a long-term goal in a quarter, a semester or even in 2019. Make your 2019 goals attainable. And have a specific, detailed, and a clear plan and the tools that will allow you to reach your goals. Then, you can celebrate your successes.

Your Milestones

In your quest to conquer your Everest, it is an imperative to reach specific camps at key heights (16,000 feet, 21,000 feet, 23,000 feet, 26,000 feet, etc.) to help you acclimatize before your reach the summit at 29,035 feet. You know your body cannot take it if you try to leap from 0 to 29,035 feet above sea level. Likewise, to reach your goals for 2019 you need to gradually and consistently work at achieving them.

Milestones remind you of your direction and short-term accomplishments. They keep you going, pointing the way to the summit.

The Wheel of Balance

To help you succeed in achieving your 2019 resolutions, you need to take care of yourself. The Wheel of Balance shows that successful people aim to balance all six sections of the wheel—Personal, Professional, Financial, Spiritual, Family, Society—so no section of the wheel is deflated or over-inflated. Just imagine a car in the fast lane of the freeway with wheels at different levels of inflation. That car will experience a crash sooner than later. The ride will not be as smooth or safe. 

Your 2019 resolutions ought to include personal as well as professional achievements; financial and spiritual well-being; family and societal endeavors. 

Committing to specific plans, implementing the right actions with the right tools, and living a balanced life will help you conquer your Everest, not only in 2019, but well beyond. Remember, at the center of the wheel is You. Without You nothing happens. 

So, plan, do, check, adjust, adapt, and reinvent yourself in 2019! 

Yes, if you wish, will, and do, you will find the way to Success! Therefore, succeed and enjoy your accomplishments in 2019!

Eddy A. Sumar, MBA, CCE, CICE, and CEW, is the Founder of ERS Consulting Services in Rancho Cucamonga, California; he is an International Trade Financing Consultant; a Consultant for the Center for International Trade Development (CITD); a member of the Guidepoint Global Advisors, and an Associate of Quote 2 Cash (Q2C). Mr. Sumar is a research consultant, author, and a public speaker and enjoys writing and traveling. Contact: e-mail: ealberto@aol.com.