Another Year Sheds its Shadow
By Paul Callan
New Years is traditionally the time we devote to self-reflection and for making personal resolutions for a new beginning. During the coming days we’ll all try to summon the conviction to correct past errors, take stock of our behavior, and try to harness the motivation to seize new opportunities. All of this well-intended activity will be wrapped in the earnest intention to shape a better self, and a better year, ahead. As the old year relents and sheds its shadow to the emerging light of the new, this metaphor perfectly represents what we, as leaders, seek to do in declaring New Year’s resolutions: out with the old, in with the new. But before beginning this annual tradition of resolution-making, I wanted to share a few insights I hope will refine my approach as a person and as a leader, and maybe yours too.
As I look at the word resolution I cannot escape noticing its root word—resolute. I have long valued the word resolute because I believe it is one of the qualities most emblematic of great leaders (think here of Lincoln, Gandhi, MLK, Churchill, Helen Keller, among others). Additionally, the ability to remain resolute, to show resolve, is perhaps one of the most difficult virtues to master because, to be resolute, requires one to possess courage…both of the physical and moral kind. The fact it is hard to be courageous, and therefore resolute, makes the attainment of these virtues all the more gratifying. If it were easy, anyone could do it—hardly the recipe for a heroic life or heroic leadership.
I am now wondering this: why has the act of simply declaring one’s resolutions (what we usually do) somehow eclipsed the far more important behavior of being resolute (what we usually don’t do)? I think the answer to this question also reveals the root problem: resolutions are easy to say, but hard to do. In conceiving our resolutions, we often fail to appreciate the enormous personal resolve required to actually attain them. This deficiency is what Abraham Lincoln long-ago chastened us to when he spoke of “the silent artillery of time”—the fact that initial passion and conviction, once exposed to the withering cannonade of time, usually recede in intensity unless they are buttressed by deep internal fortitude.
Seems to me Abe was right. Motivation and inspiration–the handmaidens of all resolutions–share an unfortunate flaw: they are highly perishable attributes. When we awake on 1 January, cloaked in the warm robe of our new resolutions, we soon realize we’ll now have to attend to that pesky task of actually executing our plans. Those once white-hot flames of motivation born on 31 December have already started to dim just a day or two removed from their ignition
So this year, my New Year’s resolution is simply this: I resolve to be resolute. Yes…dream big. Yes…set heroic aspirations. But… execute in small 24-hour steps. My goal is to hold myself accountable to be resolute one day at a time. Show resolve– today. Get up each day and repeat. And to help retain my resolve I will keep close to me this maxim attributed to Native American warriors in greeting their sons each morning: “Today is a good day to do great things.”
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