It’s the end of January, yet as many others do, I still catch myself greeting friends I haven’t seen yet with those three little words - Happy New Year!
Whilst the moment may have passed and the greeting feels a bit late, I believe the new year is worth celebrating. The beginning of a year can bring about self improvement, ambition, and new learning.
We tend to see the new year as a fresh start. A clean starting point to change our behaviour, eliminate bad habits, try something new, or accomplish a goal.
Our New Year resolutions might be specific like ‘go to the gym more’, they might be measurable like ‘go to the gym twice a week’. They might even take the form of a behavioural trait or value.
Personally, I’ve landed on a mix of both, but today I wanted to talk to you about…
Five values I’m living by in 2023:
1) Time & Space
I’m sure many of us would agree that adult life is difficult to manage. With age comes responsibility. We need to keep a roof over our head, pay bills on time, put food on the table, and provide for children if we have them.
On top of the survival necessities, we need to make time for family and friends; attending weddings and birthday parties, going out for catch up drinks or dinner, maybe even jumping on a flight for a weekend away.
Then on top of all that, we need to make some time for ourselves, and enjoy our personal space. The time we have spare needs to cover exercise, entertainment, development, hobbies, and of course relaxation.
My time is very important to me, and I’m choosing to spend it wisely. That means instead of throwing Netflix on the TV and getting comfy on the sofa, I’m spending the majority of my evenings at my desk writing music. And in a work capacity, it means I’m focusing on the pieces of work that will move the needle and help us meet our objective.
By saying yes to one thing, we close ourselves off to another. So choose how you spend your time wisely, and keep space for the things that matter most.
2) Curiosity
I’ve always been a pretty curious person, but now I’m living by this behaviour to let curiosity take me down a deeper path.
If I discover an artist that’s new to me, it’s not enough for me to know their most popular pieces of work. I need to know their story, their upbringing, how they broke through and what influenced them. I’m fascinated by the tools used to craft their art and their technique. I research into the movement they are or were a part of, and I continue discovering more art through researching their influences and contemporaries.
This year that curiosity will open its door to more marketing experiments. There are areas we have yet to explore in marketing our agency, and in the quest for greatness it would be wrong to leave those stones unturned.
Aside from experiments I’ll be following more breadcrumbs, going into a deeper analysis to understand why certain pieces of content do or do not work, uncovering trends and reading more into the data available to me.
I’ll continue to research deeper into subject matter too. I'm interested in psychology, campaign failure and success, new technologies, and channel expertise. My research includes reading, listening, watching and most importantly experiencing.
At home, I’m curious to know if I’ll be able to pull off making my own pasta - guess it's time to buy a machine and find out!
3) Gut Feel
I’m sure many of you will resonate with this one.
Your gut feel is a sense of intuition, caused by your past experiences. It’s a deep feeling that can come in the form of butterflies, a sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach, tension or tightness in the body, or an internal voice.
We all live by our own map of the world. We have different morals and ethics, expectations, realities and dreams. Our brains are vessels, we filter the information and data fed to us and choose to keep what we deem as important, significant or interesting.
Your views and opinions need to be expressed, you know what’s best for you on a personal level, and for your business on a professional one.
Going with your gut is saying yes to the right things, questioning anything you disagree or feel uneasy with, and saying no when you know it’s the best decision you can make.
4) Commitment
This is a big one!
It’s easier to commit yourself to the things that you love and enjoy, but it’s much harder to stay committed to things that you dislike, find boring or difficult.
Like everyone, in my role there are tasks I prefer over others. I love creative thinking, writing, and creating content. I don’t love analysing data, or getting through heavy administrative work. But, you can’t really have one without the other. Being committed to what you do, means embracing every aspect of the job.
I’m committed to the culture! At work that means immersing myself in the marketing world; following breaking news and industry updates, reading blogs, books, tips and guides. It’s an ever changing landscape and if you want to be involved in it, then you need to keep up with what’s happening as the industry evolves so quickly.
I’m committed to doing things the right way and aim to produce the best work I can. No cutting corners, no compromises.
The final boss of commitment is the ‘instant gratification monkey’. I watched Tim Urban’s fantastic TED talk, in one of our internal ‘cinema club’ sessions last year and it really resonated with me. The instant gratification monkey is that little devil that pops into your head and distracts you with thoughts like ‘you could work on that really important task you had planned, or you could watch a few Youtube videos instead’’. We need to power through, block out those unproductive thoughts and get in the flow!
5) Consistency
One of my mates thought he could’ve been a professional snooker player, and now it’s become a bit of a meme in my friendship group.
He told us that if he’d practised every day, he had the talent to make it as a snooker pro. The boys joke that any of us could’ve been pro if we practised every day too.
And I see both sides to the argument. My friend in question is referring to natural skill, and the boys are stating that with enough practice and passion, anyone can make it.
Whilst some of us are better at sports, or playing instruments, writing stories, or drawing pictures than others, it doesn’t guarantee that we’ll make a success of our talents. There are plenty of successful people out there that aren’t as talented as you. What made them a success was following through, putting in graft and being consistent.
Spend just half an hour a day, practising an instrument, painting a landscape, writing a novel, or reading deep into a new subject. Whatever your passion, you’ll be so pleased with your progress when you look back in three months, one year, or three year’s time.
It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be.
