A traditional annual ritual is our review our family calendar of events at the end of each year.
With each Christmas, my wife will find in her stocking the kitchen desk calendar in which every family member will record (in advance) our daily and weekly activities.
I learned early in marriage that if it hasn't been written in the family calendar a dinner, talk or other event has not officially been acknowledged.
It was a great way to coordinate the activities of a busy family.
But before, we put away the past year's calendar, we take the time to review it together with appreciation and reflection.
Although the year seems to have passed so quickly, when we recall holidays, birthdays and other special events celebrated together they seem to have happened long ago and we're amazed how much we did in just one year.
Together we reflect back on personal and family achievements — successfully completing another year of school, what my wife has accomplished with her kindergarten students and the patients I have assisted in my practice. We appreciate the challenges we navigated, what we have survived together and what we have learned.
A New Year comes with new promise — and promises we make to ourselves, often in the form of new activities and habits we'd like to try out or establish.
I usually ask myself four questions.
- What activities should I do more often in the New Year? What should I continue?
- What activities should I do less often? What things should I reduce?
- What activities should I stop? These take time, energy and attention and are neither necessary nor add value.
- What can I create? What new activities will bring more value and enjoyment to my life?
We often identify resolutions — personal commitments to healthier new habits — or the elimination of old unhealthy ones, but when we frame our resolutions in the negative, we need to articulate positive alternatives.
I don't recommend we start with a to do or self-improvement list. We all have someone in our lives who would be happy to provide a short or long list. If you need further suggestions, your family doctor would be happy to help.
Goals should be consistent with your most important values and these should be considered from your long view — beyond even the span of one year.
Consider starting with your mindset — the perspective with which we think of ourselves, our relationships and our world.
This doesn't have to be a full-blown identity crisis. It’s just an honest assessment of the attitudes we bring to life.
What approaches are not working so well? Can we consider more positive points of view?
I call this a New Year's revolution. This is not a wholesale trashing of the status quo but an iterative cyclic review not unlike how scientists expand or revise their theories to accommodate new information and things that just don't fit with our outdated narratives — the stories we tell ourselves.
Here are just a few provocative perspectives to fuel your potential New Year's revolution.
- The growth mindset (as opposed to the fixed mindset). If we believe our potential (our talent, skills and intelligence are fixed, we limit our personal growth. If we recognized that we are always learning and growing from experience, we're more open to new experiences and willing to challenge ourselves to discover our undiscovered potentials
- Are you playing the traditional win-lose game at work, in school or in your relationships? The alternative is the infinite game, popularized by Simon Sinek. With this mindset, the point of the game is to keep the game going and not compete to be the sole winner. We lift each other up and work and play in ways that benefit whole of which we are an integral part.
- Are you just one separate individual competing with all others in the rat race of life with the goal of gaining the most points in status, money or material things that no one gets to keep at the end of the race of life? The alternative is recognizing that we are all connected and interdependent. Living my own life, raising a family with my wife, seeing my children grow up, losing my mother and supporting my patients through the evolution of their relationships and the vicissitudes of human life, I've come to recognize that we are all a part of the cycle of love. We receive love in many forms from innumerable benefactors, including family members, teachers, coaches, friends, neighbours and many others whom we will never know or be able to thank. We learn to accept love in all its human and imperfect forms, learn to love ourselves and learn to give that love forward to others.
Dr. Davidicus Wong is a Burnaby family physician and has written for the NOW since 1991.
