I remember when I was in 20’s that a New Year always was an exciting time and brought a sense of hope and new beginnings.  As I near 40 a New Year has taken on a different meaning and tone.  I always try and spend New Years day just messing around on odds and ends so I can think about things.  Today brought me a little bit of clarity on why New Years has changed for me.

In my 20’s I didn’t have as much to worry about.  I thought I did but now looking back it was a very simple life.  Zoom forward to today and I have more responsibilities in my career, I have a home that needs tending, I have a wife who is fighting breast cancer, I have a 2.5 year old who is trying to figure her way through things, and I have a 6 month old son who has no idea what is going on yet.  It’s tiring even thinking about it.

In my 20’s I could afford to look at an entire new year with broad hopes and goals but today these simply get lots in the day to day shuffle.  So my first resolution of the new year is to stop looking at it as a new year and look at it as a new month.  The way I see it is that a single month is more discrete and something that is visible even in the day-to-day events.  If I can set one or maybe two clear goals for each month and have a series of successful months then it will be a very good year.  So it’s not that a new is not important it’s that how I look at it needs to change in order for it to be successful.