Decision helps us start. Discipline helps us finish.

It has been a busy 1st week in 2008 – both at home and at work. I wanted to find some quiet time for myself – to reflect on 2007 and to plan for 2008, but have not been able to do so. I finally managed to do it this morning while the workshop is going on :-)

I look at the 2 mind maps that I have drawn up – one for 2007 and one for 2008. I have not completed them yet, especially for the 2007 as I could not recall much about what I had done and what goals I had set for myself, but when I look at the 2008 mind map, all I could say is I am too ambitious. There are just too much that I want to do, some are new goals and some are brought forward from 2007.

When I look at some of the goals that are brought forward from 2007, I feel guilty. A year ago, when I first set them as my goals, I was very enthusiastic and determined to achieve them, so I started to work towards them and track my progress regularly. After a while, my enthusiasm died down, I spent less and less time and finally they got squeezed out of my radar screen.

When the year end got closer, I then realized that there was not much time left, and I regretted not having enough discipline. When the new year began, I asked myself if these goals were still relevant, and the answer was yes, so the goals remained on my list.

This year, I decide to do it differently as I do not want to feel miserable at the end of the year that I have not achieved my goals. I am not prepared to drop any of these goals even though some of them have been on my list for many years, so what I plan to do is to prioritize my goals and focus on those top priority ones (or what I call KPIs). At the end of the year, as long as I achieve these KPIs, I will consider it as targets achieved. Anything more than these KPIs will be a bonus to me.

Well, I do recognize that at the end of the day, what is important is I must have the discipline to finish what I start. While I can identify a few KPIs, but if I do not have the discipline to follow through, at the end of the year I will still be lamenting about not achieving my goals.

The following is what I wrote on the board to remind myself about my commitment:
“Decision helps us start. Decision helps us finish. Start early, start small, start now!”