It’s about now that your New Year Resolutions are beginning to fade. I was talking to a very stressed friend shortly before Christmas and we were discussing the erroneous belief that women can multi-task and men can’t.

Of course, nobody can hold more than one thought in their mind at any given time, which is very obvious to me when I’m playing the piano. If you’re playing something complex, you cannot talk at the same time. We all know those exercises of rubbing one’s stomach and patting one’s head at the same time, and muscle memory can often help do conflicting things. Where the genders differ is often, although certainly not always, in the area of planning (rather than in multi-tasking).

Plan, plan, plan

At Xmas, a friend of mine was so stressed that she felt like running away abroad, which would not have gone down well with the family. We therefore embarked on an objective setting methodology which I’ve used numerous times with coachees. This technique is hugely helpful for getting things done and making life plans. Although there are invariably family tensions at Xmas, my friend found the objective-setting techniques very effective; she was ready, with presents wrapped and mental state intact, two weeks before Xmas.

Define your achievable outcomes

Now it’s the time for New Year’s resolutions, and they are often snuffed out very quickly like a candle.  If you want to appear to be able to multi-task then it’s all really in the planning, and there is no substitute for defining your goals or, as I prefer to call them, achievable outcomes, in each segment of your life for the coming year and beyond. 

If any of you have read the Top Five Regrets of the Dying, you will know that most human beings look back with the same regrets, which are:  

1) I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2) I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

3) I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

4) I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.

5) I wish I’d let myself be happier.

If we’re going to avoid regrets we must plan to achieve things we want to achieve, and strange though it may seem, accessing desire is often a difficult thing to do. I do know that the technique I used with my friend is the single most valuable technique I have come across in my years of HR and coaching.

If you’d like to plan so that you have fewer regrets and achieve your target goals – whether it’s growing bonsai trees, knitting, running a marathon or changing career or life direction – then this is a valuable route to go, otherwise your resolutions die like a candle in the wind.

If you'd like help with planning and setting achievable goals in the workplace, get in touch with the Integrated Resources team today.

Happy New Year!