By: D. A. Slinkard
Ready or not, here it comes! 2018 is upon you even if you are not ready to flip that calendar into a new year. I was recently looking back and could not believe how quickly the year had flown by with many things that I wanted to accomplish in 2017 just being left undone. Does this sound like you? We are in the same boat, but the difference is that I am not making the same mistakes in 2018.
If you look at the road we had in 2017, it really was a beautiful journey we had together. We have spoken about attitude, we have spoken about persistence beating resistance, and to be honest we have hit on just about every kind of subject there is when it comes to a positive mental attitude. If you want success to happen it is there for the taking, but you must be willing to grab it.
My final article for 2017 is going to be about goal setting for 2018, and I want you to think long and hard about what it is you want to accomplish in the next year. You really need to put some thought behind this because 2017 is proof that time waits around for no one. If you are not living the life that you feel destined to live, now is the time to change. If your life is not going the way you want, now is the time to change.
What a wonderful time of the year it is as we put the final wrappings on 2017, and whether it was a good year or a bad year, it makes no difference, the question is what did you learn from the previous 12 months? If you didn’t learn anything, then what a shame because that’s a prime example of someone just wasting their time away. Stop doing it. You have one life to live. One shot to be all that you can be. What are you going to do with it?
Before you can know what you are going to do in the future, you need to know where you were in the past. What went well for you in 2017? What were some of the year’s highs for you? What could have gone better for you? More importantly, what did you learn about 2017 that will keep you from making the same mistakes in 2018? Life is all about learning and when you learn, you grow, but when you stop learning that is when you stop growing. We need to keep growing because we are not finished with what we have started.
I am curious; what is the one thing you would do if you knew you could not fail in 2018? Open your own business? Write your first book? Pop the question? Go ahead and take the time to think about what your one thing is and then decide to act. You must act upon that decision. The success we have written about in 2017, the success you want in 2018, it all hinges upon the thought process you just had about that one decision.
I am going to tell you that whatever is on your mind about this decision, you need to take the time to just go do it. There is no better time than now to act upon that which your heart desires. You cannot get the year 2017 back, but you can make sure that you make up for it in 2018. I know I have my ideas in place, I know what I want to achieve and you better darn well believe that I will not be leaving loose ends in 2018 like I did in 2017.
We are going to need to be aggressive when it comes to what we want to accomplish. We are going to need a plan, and the plan needs to be deliberate. Everything we do in 2018 needs to be with an intent and with a purpose to make sure we achieve the success we missed out on in 2017. There is no looking back, no time to clean up spilled milk; there is only time for us to look ahead and know that we will be successful because mentally we will be so much stronger in ‘18 than in ‘17. No holding back.
By: D. A. Slinkard
