Café

One of my favorite images from France this summer.

A Calendar for 2012

“We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day.”

In 2012 there will be 12 months, 52 1/3 weeks, 366 days, 8784 hours, & 527040 minutes. How are you going to use them?

What is that you would like to accomplish? What do you want to learn? What skill do you want to acquire? How do you want to improve? Coming up with answers to these questions usually isn’t very challenging. Perhaps coming up with too many answers for these questions is a problem. I know it is for me. But what is more challenging is actually making progress toward these goals. At this time of year many people make resolutions for the new year. However, it has become the norm to not only make them, but brake them. Failed New Year’s resolution jokes are almost a genre unto themselves. From personal experience and thinking on the subject, I believe that a problem in our goal setting process contributes to our failure in meeting those goals: we fail to break down our goals into manageable tasks that we can accomplish.

Without clear intermediate steps we have no way forward. We probably spend more time coming up with goals than we do figuring out how we are going to accomplish them, and that should be the other way around. When we fail to break down our large goals into smaller, doable tasks, we often suffer from unrealistic expectations. Rome wasn’t conquered in a day, yet I have find myself setting goals that are good, but impossible to accomplish in a day, a week, or even a month. Then I continually compare my progress against the final goal, a comparison that inevitably brings frustration and often a sense of futility. Then I quit. Maybe you can relate to this.

If we have realistic expectations, not only will this help us feel better about the progress we do make, I believe it will help us make more progress by sticking with something longer than we would otherwise. Don’t be too focused on the present, on what you are accomplishing today. Remember, the good things will come from the little by little over the long haul. But don’t be too focused on the goal that you don’t enjoy the little victories along the way. Those keep us going.

One of my goals for 2012 is to become a better writer. I’ve decided that my daily goal should be to write half a page a day. It can be about anything. I don’t expect to be a great writer by February, but I think that if I write half a page a day for a year, that I will definitely be a better writer this time next year. I also think it will be fun.

So this year, think of daily goals that will help you accomplish your yearly goals, which will help you accomplish your life goals. There is power in the daily ritual. It is ok to have intensive trainings sessions or bursts of activity, but it is much better to establish a healthy norm, a lifestyle that is conducive to learning and improving.

And so, for the start of 2012, I’ve designed a calendar. This calendar is an attempt to help me, and hopefully you, do that; to establish habits and patterns that will help us reap long-term successes. Each circle on the calendar represents a day. The idea is to come up with a daily task that you want to do every day in 2012. For each task print out a sheet on 11x17in paper. When you accomplish the task, fill in the circle for that day. It may seem simple, and perhaps even silly, but I know that doing something like this helps. Even after three days of filling in circles, you really want to make sure you fill in that fourth circle. You don’t want to break the streak. You don’t want to have to skip it and leave it blank when you look at it tomorrow. Every little bit helps.

Here are the instructions on the calendar:

Decide what you want to do. Then determine a simple daily activity that will help you toward that goal. Keep it simple. 15 minutes max. Then commit to doing it every day for a year. Start small and like a plant from a small seed or ripples in water from a small stone, over time, it will grow. Just imagine what you could accomplish in a year if you did something little every single day. Now stop imagining and start doing.

Have a Happy New Year and a wonderful 2012!

Download the PDFs:

Green Calendar

Orange Calendar

Blue Calendar

Potato Field

In the Netherlands. Somewhere near a windmill.

Luxembourg

Eiffel Tower

Dutch Landscape

Académie Française

Paris, France

German Landscape

To be fair, here is a landscape of Germany.

I love the red rooves against the green of the trees. Also interesting to note, for urban planners, the structure of their towns that have grown up in a society where walking is the main mode of transportation.

Hohenzollern

Perhaps the best castle in Germany. Unfortunately the prince was not at home. He was in his flat in Berlin.

The Rhein Falls

These are the biggest falls in Europe.