SELLability

You might remember that amazing and hilarious Bill Murray 1993 movie “Groundhog Day” in which Murray’s character becomes trapped in a time loop, and wakes up every morning finding it’s the exact same day he lived yesterday, with all the exact same events. For anyone who’s ever seen that film, you will never hear the old Sonny and Cher song “I’ve Got You Babe” the same way ever again, as that is the song that’s on Murray’s clock radio every morning when he wakes up.

Remind You of Anything?

The theme of that movie is something that could certainly apply to New Year's resolutions—for many of us arrive in the New Year making the same resolutions we made last year. Do your New Year's resolutions follow this same pattern? Are they strangely similar every January? This month’s newsletter and blogs are dedicated to helping you break that pattern.

I observe this every year, and I find it fascinating. At this time of year, I often get asked to do many seminars, presentations, and workshops on strategy and planning, since that is what companies are doing at the beginning of the year. In conversation with people in the companies I am doing this for, I see that, for many, New Year's resolutions are indeed very much the same year after year. They have remarkably familiar themes of deciding to exercise more, and of following a healthier diet. Of course, such resolutions cannot help but follow a season in which we consume a lot of pie and cookies.

The sadly humorous fact of such resolutions can be seen in the story of a friend of mine who is dedicated to fitness and who takes advantage of his gym membership throughout the year. Just after the first of the year, his gym is filled with a whole bunch of new faces. By February, most of them have disappeared, and he is then sharing the gym with the same year-round regulars who are always there.

If you take a step back, you will see that improvement decisions that are related to diet and weight loss are always the most popular in January, and then just before Summer when everyone wants to look good in swimming and beach attire. But the point is, for whatever reason, we arrive back in the New Year sheepishly noticing our expanding waistlines and making those same resolutions once again.

Why Only in January?

My question is, why do we only pay attention to making ourselves better in January? Perhaps we are making the wrong resolutions—and perhaps we should make a resolution to change the idea that we only address improvement at this one time of year. And that we make such resolutions more fundamental and therefore lasting.

For the newsletter and blogs this month, we are going to take a look at resolutions you could make that would be permanent and lasting. They deal in the area of your happiness, directly tied to your level of communication, knowledge, and production.

Stay with me as we explore these vital topics.