I am fortunate to have my birthday align with the time when many people set New Year’s Resolutions. It’s a season for reviewing the past year, perhaps conducting a life audit, envisioning the upcoming year, and for the ambitious, initiating new habits and habit stacking (as suggested in “Atomic Habits” by James Clear).
Considering the profound world-changing events of the past four years, spanning a pandemic, wars, and protests on various fronts, one might almost anticipate market forces disrupting carefully curated vision boards. The world is growing increasingly complex, and only a few possess the skills to navigate rapidly changing systems. If you haven’t updated your skills to align with the World Economic Forum’s recommended “Future of Work” skills, you might find yourself falling drastically behind, risking economic displacement if accumulated wealth or an inheritance doesn’t materialise.
This leads me to the question of what you are hedging your bets on for an optimal future. Is it the outcome of the 2024 elections worldwide? The improvement of the economy, finally meeting the 5% growth targets I’ve been hearing about for 20 years? Will you diversify your investment portfolio and increase offshore investments? But wait, the entire world is uncertain! Do you have a vegetable garden to mitigate the rising cost of garlic and tomatoes?
This year, I am choosing to hedge my bets on the certainty of uncertainty and to embrace it. I aim to soften my hardened heart and return to the first principles of innovation—truly listening to what people and the environment are telling me with an empathetic ear, strengthening my ability to suspend judgment to understand where people are coming from before solutioneering. I acknowledge that our prepackaged solutions are not serving the world we currently live in. Therefore, I choose to find common ground to act together, swiftly end what’s not working, and experiment anew. I am choosing to trust God to guide my footsteps and take responsibility for my personal development and new knowledge creation, recognising that leadership development is an ongoing process.
I choose to apply Stephen Covey’s principle of the Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence—focusing and acting on what I can control while letting go of expending energy on what I can’t. I recently saw a meme that said, “A new year is just a new day unless you change your habits,” author unknown. What is within our control are the habits we invest in and an examination of our beliefs, media consumption, assumptions, and actions. Your New Year can start any day; hedge your bets well!