Happy New… ah, to hell with it.

by Sean Purcell

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

Please, allow me to be the very first to wish you a Happy New Year!  What’s that?  Not the first huh; the second?  The tenth?  Well just forget it then.  Truth be told “Happy New Year” is kind of silly isn’t it?  I mean, it’s just an imaginary line drawn in a calendar.  The time of year we just know we’re going to write the wrong date on our checks and when we do we’re still surprised by it: “Look what I did here Mac, I was writing out a check and I wrote ’08 instead of ’09!  Can you believe it!  Golly, I wonder how many more times I’ll make that mistake.”  (Note of explanation for the younger readers out there: we used to carry around these little pads called checkbooks.  They were nicely encased in a faux leather little cover and you would write on one of the sheets in this pad a kind of IOU that your bank would pay out of your account.  It had the benefit, especially right after the holidays, of creating a little time between when you paid something and when you necessarily had to have the actual cash.  You could not use them for online purchases, which was OK because the world was offline at the time.)

Where was I?  Oh yeah: saying Happy New Year on this day is a bit arbitrary.  When you think about it, we begin a new year every single day of our lives.  As a matter of fact, we begin a new life every single day of our lives.  Why don’t we wish each other Happy New Life each day instead of Good Morning?  Wouldn’t that put a much finer point on the power of today?  Oh I know what you’re thinking: “arbitrary or not, this is the time for Resolutions.”  Have you read the statistics on New Year’s resolutions?  Do you know how many are broken within hours of their creation?  (If so, please go ahead and post them in the comments because I didn’t bother to look them up – one of my resolutions is to waste less time finding links that others can find on there own.  As a matter of fact, did you know that the importance of blog linking is declining?  Damn it!  There, I went and broke my only New Year’s Resolution… anyone got the time?)

Here’s my point: every single day is an opportunity for us to take one more step down the path of success as we define it.  Whether you want to lose weight, spend more time with your family, spend less time with your family, make a boat load of money, load a boat with money and travel the world – whatever our goals – we can get closer to them each and every day if we only take three simple steps:

1. Have a Goal.  This may seem obvious but you’d be surprised how many people do not have a specific, written goal they look at every day.  (I’ll pause here for everyone to get a paper and pen and write their goal down.)
2. Select an Action.  Like ironing, one you can do every day and make into a habit.  Albert Einstein said the 8th Wonder of the World was the power of compounding.  If it is so powerful in the financial world, imagine the impact of a compounding habit on us!
3. Recognize your WHY.  Have a damn good reason “why” you want to achieve the goal.  We are motivated by the why’s in our life.  Nobody actually loses 50lbs because they would look better.  They lose weight to save their life or to save their marriage or to finally show up at the High School Reunion and rub it in the face of “little miss popularity” who now has four kids, four chubby cheeks and a couple of chins…)

Hey, the truth is everyone looks at January 1st as a time of new beginnings.  If it helps to believe in that type of mass delusion I say go for it.  If you set your goals on December 3rd I say good for you too.  If you are going to wait until January 2nd just to be contrarian I relish the beat of your different drum.  Just make sure you don’t wait until January 3rd, because that will have been three New Lifetimes from now and no one should allow so much time to pass without purpose (last night’s festivities not withstanding).

Take a look around.  If you are content with what you see, don’t change a thing between today and yesterday.  If, however, you occasionally wake up and say to yourself “Hey, I don’t remember asking for more bills than money.” or “When did I decide I wanted more waist than I had belt?” you might want to engage in a little personal compounding yourself.   Those three steps I mentioned above are all that’s required to create some pretty amazing miracles.  Want to know the best part?  Compounding your personal interest does not depend on a calendar.  It doesn’t matter in the least what day today is because when it comes to your success, every day is a beginning.

Happy New Life!