I have never believed in New Year’s Resolutions. I am not opposed to goals for oneself, in fact, due to my Best Self Journal, I do quarterly goals throughout the year. But a few years ago, listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Cortex, they talked about the concept of a yearly theme. Themes are not pass-fail activities like a resolution. They are ideas that help direct your choices throughout the year. One year that was particularly successful for me was a theme of “Infrastructure in the Business,” which timed up incredibly well to help me survive the introduction of multiple children into my life.
Here is a link to a podcast about the concept of yearly themes.
My theme for 2020: Margin.
Margin is something that is needed in my life in a few different ways and I wanted to take a moment to break those out and encourage you to think about a theme for 2020.
Margin in:
Profit- For my business to go to the next level and to be the best place to work in West Tennessee, I will need more profit margin in my business. An increased profit margin will allow us to build more space between projects or allow us to spend more time on projects by adding team members or taking on less “small” projects. This should lead to a better team experience. Additionally, in seeking to do awesome things like the Ramsey Solutions Christmas activities (massive party and $1,000 shopping spree for employees at the shopping mall), a healthy profit is required. To be the company I want us to be, we need to not only be profitable (which we have been), but we need to be more profitable than we have been.
Time- I regularly pack a lot into days. I do not think this is going to change, but how I pack things into days will probably change. Besides being more present in whatever task I am involved in at the time, I need to create a margin. Margin in my time will allow me to spend more time with my family and it not be detrimental to my work. And when needed, spend more time with my work and it not be detrimental to my family. To accomplish this I will need to seek efficiencies and extra help in my business over the year, which will likely be attached to part one of this theme.
Mental Space– I am listening/reading/watching, things basically from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. I want to seek more mental space in my daily life. This may mean less time on Twitter (how I love the Tweets) or choosing to not turn on the news in the car, or listening to music instead of a podcast, or not listening to anything at all. In addition to this, I need more mental space to work ON my business instead of just IN my business. The last year has been so crazy personally and professionally that not much time was spent working on things but rather instead working in them. Finding time to be still or just less distracted will be good for this year.
Waistline- And to round out all the areas of my life touched by this theme is my health. I need more margin in my waistline. Are there goals I would like to meet? Yes. But in general, I would like to lose some weight and get healthier. I also want to be better at moderation. I am an “all on” or “all off” kind of healthy eater and want to get some margin in my weight so that I can find balance.
So margin is the theme. Over the course of 2020, I will be working on building more margin. One of the nice things about themes is that it can change over the course of the year. Kevin today might not value the same exact things as Kevin in July. Even with that being the case, I think margin will still be important.
Here is to a great 2020.
