The new year is usually a time for reflection and new resolves for business and life. Everybody he/she commits to do, …, something about his/her life and/or business! It is a time to start to decide change things, ways, habits, and approaches for making a difference in the world! But, usually is not the case!

Make a Difference

The New Year Resolutions

A new year signifies a lot of opportunities for retrospection, reflection, resolutions, and review of what has been done and what needs to be done in the future.

Usually is the time of the year we take “serious” decisions only to abandon them just the following month(s). Yes, it is a problem and needs to be fixed, as any other problem you have to handle in your life and business. You need to change this behavior in order to succeed in the new business environment and have a meaningful life along the side!

And, you need to dream! To dream big. In a way that:

If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough. (― Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, This Child Will Be Great: Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa’s First Woman President)

I’ve been blogging more than 3 years now, sharing my thoughts on how to make a difference! My goal is to empower you in order to become capable not only to set your goals in a way suitable for you but also to be able to reach them in the way most fitted to your values, your life principles, and your requirements!

That is not always easy, because, you have to define the problem of “what you want”; and this problem is not always easy to solve!

The Why of Being You

Half of the trouble of defining what you want in your life and business is to define with clarity (and sincerity) your values, your goals, your ambitions, your wants, and your wants not! It is important for you to have a clear view of your direction in life and of the means, your might need to use that can help you or hindered you in your course!

Besides your vector (your direction) you are needing to know where you want to reach (your objectives|area) in every important area of your life. You need to know how to reach them, what would feel like when you succeed them, how your life going to be different after their accomplishment. To do that, to review them frequently and to change them in it is needed, you need to sit down and write them in a way that is most appropriate for you and your way of thinking and doing!

Be careful, though, these are not goals of the first of the year we forget all the rest period! they are tools that aim at focusing your resolve on achieving them. To this end, you need to make them SMART and available on demand (I keep mine in text files in a special Dropbox folder, in my Google Drive and in Evernote – yes, redundancy, but there are things you need promptly available and to review constantly.) You can set your goals for a semester, a quarter, a year or more. It does not make any difference, as long you have your goals available in a place and ready to be reviewed or act upon!

Your values, your principles, your dreams, your beliefs, your strengths and your restrictions, your wants and your wants not, are all part of the entity which is you. And all are the core parameters of the why being you, doing things in a certain way, believing in certain things, having favorite ways of thinking, etc. All these “data“, might help you understand a little bit more yourself and define with clarity your “why” and your mission in life, society, and business!

Should you have documented your goals, your belief systems, your limitations, your strong points, etc. you are ready to start making a difference in the world (and not just for this year but anywhere and anytime)!

How to Make a Difference, Today, In the World

To make a difference in the world you need, first, to define your why and the people you want to serve with your thoughts and your work! There are not easy solutions, but it is something you need to commit to achieving it!

Second, you need to start taking baby steps! One step here, another there, you fix something today, you help someone tomorrow to do something, you improve a system or a way of doing something, etc. There is no rush, but you have to start today to take the initiative to make a difference!

Third, you need to commit to:

  • Assume Accountability. You should always assume accountability in any given situation you are involved in. If you would start today, trying to improve your life and business this is the ONE thing you should change in your life (even if it isn’t true most of the times). You should always assume that you have the power to change something and you are responsible for the outcome of the situation you are involved in! This is personal leadership and it is an ingredient for building stronger characters!
  • Set your boundaries. You need to have the time and the energy to focus on the things needs to be done and the motivation to chase after the things are most important to yourself. To do that you need to set boundaries, which will permit you to have the energy, the time, the enthusiasm, the passion and the necessary motivation to do what it needs to be done!
  • Develop more options (opportunities) for yourself and the people around you. You need to be in the business or in the habit of finding or developing more options in any given situation. This mindset would help you to enhance your capabilities and multiply your opportunities in a personal, social or business level!
  • Define clearly on your goals and values. It is important to get into trouble of prospering your values and harvested them in a way that would be useful tools, rather than idle phrases! You need to think deeply (and sincere) on what your values are and how to use them for bringing a difference in your life and in the world. Trust, self-esteem, and initiatives are the stuff make true the dreams and lead to success! And well-defined, intentional, usable values are the cornerstone and the foundation of defining SMART goals, able to change entire lives!
  • Find/develop the right approaches, methodologies, tools, approaches. When you have decided who you are, what you want in your life and how to get it, it is the time to find the means to help you do what you need to be doing! These might be friends, mentors, knowledge, skills, financial means, books, seminars, courses, systems, approaches, applications, tools, etc. Anything and everything which can help you reach your goals in the way that is useful, practical, on the point and on demand is valid, as long as its usage honors you (and those you associate with!)
  • Take the initiative to change things that are no longer work. Every knowledge or skill you might have developed, any resource you might possess cannot make any difference if you do not take the initiative to dedicated to the fulfillment of your mission or to the accomplishment of your objectives! It takes your intentional activity to bring changes in the world. Very rarely (if not at all), can be done by pure luck!
  • Align your values, your goals to your lifestyle and business workflow. If you need to have chances to succeed in achieving your goals, you need to consciously and intentionally align your values to your goals and the achievement of your goals to yours lifestyle and your style of working. Only by having a clear way of achieving your goals according to your way of thinking and doing things you would have the chance to succeed!
  • Actualize on your decisions. You need to commit to your decisions and find the way, first to embedded them in your daily life in an organic and nondestructive way and second to implement them in a way to promote your specific objectives towards the direction of achieving your greater life and business scope!
  • Review and Change your Goals according to your environment. In order to make a difference, you need to be aware of the things happens around you and might influence a lot of people. You should always be in a position to review, frequently, your goals in a consistent and intentional way and to change them if they become impractical or obsolete by personal, social or business realities! This is a habit should help you to update frequent your goals and your life and business strategies render them usable, always SMART and on the point! It helps you to have a firm grip on reality!

Please, feel free to share these ideas to anyone might interesting of making a difference, today! Or you might you want to share more of your ideas, by writing or commenting on the ideas discussed in this post!