At the start of every year, people write lists. Lose weight. Earn more. Read more. Travel. These are fine goals. But they often leave us strangely empty, even when we achieve them.
I invite people to begin somewhere else. Not with what you want to have, but with who you want to become.
Having, doing, becoming
Most planning goes in this order: if I have the money, I can do the travelling, and then I will become happy and free.
Lasting change usually runs the other way: I become someone who values freedom, so I do the things that create it, and over time I have a life that reflects it.
Start with becoming, and having tends to follow. Start with having, and you may get it and still feel like the same person.
Three questions for the year ahead
- At the end of this year, who do I want to have been? Not what achievements, but what qualities. Braver? Kinder? More present? More disciplined?
- What would that person do every week? Make it concrete. A braver person might speak up once in every meeting. A more present parent might put the phone away from 7 to 9pm.
- What would that person stop doing? Becoming is as much about subtraction as addition.
Write it as a letter
One of my favourite exercises, which we often use at Compass, is to write a letter from your future self. Date it one year from today. Describe, in the present tense, who you are now and how your days feel. Be specific.
Then read it once a month. It is remarkable how often people find they have quietly grown into it.