Who Cares About What You Do?

January 1, 2021

As another new year rolls around, successful leaders typically take a little time to evaluate their past year’s performance and set goals for the upcoming year.  I know I do. Likewise, I usually write a blog about reflecting on the year that was and planning for the year ahead (refer to my blog post from January 2020).

After the year we just had, I can understand that you may be a bit gun-shy to put hard, fast stakes in the ground when it comes to goal setting for 2021. I can empathize if you are reluctant to hold yourself accountable for achieving anything significant, given the unpredictable and uncontrollable circumstances we have had to deal with and will likely continue to deal with in the coming year.  

Yet, life still goes on. There is no reason you cannot make the best of it.

If you just don’t want to set annual goals right now, how about trying another approach — one that might be even more relevant to living a life of significance than traditional goal setting approaches afford (refer to my blog post from January 2019 ).

Regardless of what may have happened to you this past year, think about how whatever you did may have mattered to someone else.

Think about the individuals who were the beneficiaries, or recipients, or observers, or were otherwise impacted by the unintended consequences of your attitude, actions, and behaviors. Are you proud of the very real difference you made in their lives, for better or worse?

Start by considering those closest to you, the ones you live with day-in and day-out: your immediate family members, your spouse or life partner, your children or grandchildren, your in-laws, your roommate(s), the people who live down the hall or across the street.  What difference did you make in their lives each day? When you add up all the 366 individual days you had in 2020, what overall difference did you make for those closest to you?

Did you make them happier for having spent even more time with you, thanks to the pandemic lockdowns? Are you proud of the impact you had on them? If not, why not?

What is it about your attitude and behavior that you could improve upon this next year to ensure those relationships will be more harmonious and fruitful going forward? What habits do you have that you might tweak just a bit so that those closest to you might feel more blessed to have you around?

If you are lucky enough to still have a job—or a role in the community, or volunteer work, or simply do helpful things occasionally for a neighbor—what difference did you make this past year for the people who were impacted somehow by those efforts?

Might those individuals care about the way you do what you do for them? Do you think they look forward to interacting with you?  Are they happier and more fulfilled, thanks to your efforts? Do you think they feel more blessed to have you as a part of their team?

What could you do this next year to make those interactions more enriching for you, for those you interface with, and for those who are indirectly impacted by your involvement?

Sit down for a moment and think about all those people in your sphere of influence. How broad is that sphere? You might be surprised when you realize just how many lives your efforts, your attitude, and your actions impact.

I would bet there are more people within your sphere of influence than you may have realized. They may not all be people you interact with directly every day, but there might be a great many more than you know who really do care about what you do and how you do it.  Your reach can be very long.  Take a little time to consider all those people and how the way you treat their loved ones might rub off on them.

What could you do differently this next year to impact all those lives in a more positive way than you have in the past?

If you found out today that you only have a finite timeframe within which to make any difference, what would you do to make that difference, sooner rather than later? 

Think about it, and then … just do it.

Sending you my heartfelt best wishes for a happier and brighter New Year. May you make the most of every day you have in 2021.