Wish you had done better last year? You cannot undo the past, but you can improve the future. Here are ten insights to guide your life and career in the new year.

Do you ever wonder when you could really have truly meaningful New Year’s resolutions? Where do you start when you want to have significant changes in your life? Many yuppies and umppies (upwardly mobile professionals) are too idealistic and want to change the world. But, truly, the meaningful and significant changes that we can reasonably achieve should start with ourselves.

But what happens when our introspection tells us that we have more weaknesses than strengths, more liabilities than assets, more minuses than pluses? That’s a good start, because only in knowing the problems with ourselves that we can make the right solutions and emerge victorious.

I am reminded of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, which goes:

1. You are unique. There is no one in the world like you. The totality of your whole being is unlike that of any other person. (I hope this is still true with the advent of the cloning technology.)

2. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Man’s concept of beauty has been adulterated by advertising, media, cosmetics, and perverted views of the moneyed, strong and mighty. You can be beautiful in your own terms, especially if you believe in yourself and not be enslaved by societal standards that prevent you from being the best that you can be. Aove all, beauty transcends physical appearance.

3. Count your blessings. Surely, at one time or another, and on a regular basis, you must have received something useful, relevant, beautiful, wonderful. Perhaps, the difference between the rich and the poor is their ability to receive, utilise and optimise God’s blessings. When you look for negative things, you will find them. When you look for gold and riches alone, you seldom find them. More often, when you seek to serve others first, the money follows. When you create value for others, blessings tend to come to you a hundred fold. So, you should not ask for riches but for wisdom. Don’t ask for fish but for the skill to fish. Be satisfied with your blessings, but optimise their use and grow them so that you will have more blessings.

4. What you are is God’s gift to you. But what you do with yourself is your gift to God. When God gives us gifts or talents, He wants us to use them and multiply them. Remember the parable of the servants who lost, kept, or grew the talents given them. Which one does God favour? Of course, God favours the one who knows how to grow the talents and blessings he receives. If you have a skill, talent, or competency, don’t just sit there. Look for a job or start a business where you can put your talents to the best use.

5. Set reasonable goals and celebrate little victories. Set your eyes on results that you want to happen in your life. Goals are made to be pursued, not as ornaments in your cork board or organiser-planner. Don’t set goals that are either mediocre or impossible to achieve. Always factor in an improvement that will stretch your capabilities. Whenever you achieve your goals, no matter how simple and easy they are, learn to celebrate and motivate yourself. Savour the taste of victory until you master the art and habit of winning.

6. Have a good mentor or role model. If you can afford it, get a good mentor. If not, have a good role model and strive to be like your model. Successful persons attribute most of their successes to a good mentor or coach who can be dispassionate in showing them both their strengths and weaknesses. Be careful in choosing your role model. When choosing models for leadership, for instance, whom will you choose -Gandhi, Kennedy, Churchill or Hitler? All have great impact, a lot of followers, and influence on world events, but one of them - no prize for guessing correctly - is definitely not worthy of being your role model.

7. Grow. Successful people, pioneering people, and people who make significant contributions in this world are those who are likely to be discontented with the way things are being done. Show me a thoroughly contented person and I’ll show you a mediocre person. The secret lies in being discontented with the right things. If we strive to grow, let it be physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. Focusing on only one growth area and disregarding the others will not make us a balanced person.

8. Optimise your strengths, compensate for your weaknesses. In life and in career, success comes to those who strike best with their strengths and are able to shield their weaknesses. Knowing that there is no perfect person, we should all be aware that we have a good mix of strengths and weaknesses. Know what they are - do a lot of introspection and ask others to help you know both. Wisdom consists in knowing your strengths and your weaknesses, what you can do to improve your strengths, what weaknesses you can not change and how to compensate for those weaknesses so that they don’t stand in the way of your success.

9. Find your niche, and be the best in it. Because of what we are and what we have, we can be good at certain things and maybe we can never really excel in others. Most successful people are able to find a need, and they are the first to fill that need. Find your little corner in the world, where the sun shines the brightest for you, and strive to be the best in what you do in that corner, What are good for others might not be good for you. Start looking at your attitude, then your aptitude. Once you know yourself better, try to know your environment, including your competition. Don’t forget what Zig Ziglar said, “It is your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude.”

10. Be proud, not conceited. Feel good about yourself and chances are that you will succeed in doing your best. When you succeed in doing your best, you will be surprised to see how good you will feel about yourself. Take pride in whatever you do and leave a trademark in every accomplishment you make. Then, without knowing it, you are developing your own brand. Treat the workplace like a market place: everyday, you are selling yourself. People want to buy the best brands. You don’t have to be conceited and crow about every little thing you do. People seldom listen to what you say-they look at what you do. Results, not efforts, tend to get paid these days. No matter how much you talk about what you know or what you have done, nothing matters to other people unless you touch their lives. When you touch the lives of others, you do not have to advertise your achievements, for in their hearts they will know what you did for them. John C. Maxwell said: “Others don’t care what you know, until they know that you care.”

In “The Fiddler on the Roof”, Tevye said: “Lord, you make many people poor….” Maybe, or maybe not. But truly, no one is perfect. Sometimes, our imperfections serve a purpose - they create a positive tension so that we strive hard to overcome them, or they simply serve as a grim reminder to keep us from being conceited.

So, no one is perfect. What is your “thorn in the flesh”? Does that stand in the way of your success? When you plan your life and career in 2003, be wiser, practical and more creative. God has given you your talents. Now, it’s your turn to use them for your success and his greater glory.

Abridged from “The PMAP Newsletter,”
the monthly publication of the Personnel
Management Association of the Philippines