Assess, Action and Adapt

People always look forward to the New Year forgetting that there are still 31 days left. That would be very bad to underestimate the importance of December. Don’t relegate next year to wishful thinking. Have a plan! You must see December as your springboard into soaring higher in the upcoming New Year. Here are my three As (Assess, Action and Adapt) for using December to your full advantage.

Assess

You have to be brutally honest with yourself and your progress or lack thereof. Conduct a full autopsy of this year by doing a full SWOT analysis. Examine your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Ask yourself what has gone right? These are your strengths and opportunities. Then ask yourself what has gone wrong? These are your weaknesses and threats.

Action

Now that you’ve written down your SWOT analysis, you will devote this month towards developing an annual plan for next year. You can drill this plan down into quarters, months or weeks if necessary. Then, you want to take your strengths and opportunities and maximize these for the New Year. Exploit them to the fullest. See how you can magnify your strengths at work and home towards making your life easier. Conversely, you want to minimize your weaknesses and threats. The action plan’s goal is to eliminate what you have done wrong so that you can do more of what’s going right. This annual action plan serves as your baseline for the New Year.

Adapt

Most people think that once you write the plan, it is written in stone and can never be changed. That cannot be any further from the truth! It is okay and actually encouraged to change your plan after January because situations change. Your original plan is your baseline. The purpose of your annual plan is to guide you through the New Year. When things change, you have to adapt.

Don’t waste another year of winging it by hoping that everything goes well for you on the whimsical New Year’s resolutions that you’ve made at midnight. Make your year (and life) easier by incorporating the three As (Assess, Action and Adapt).