The Happy New Year is now a month old and, if you can believe the New York Times, most resolutions are abandoned by January 8th. My own resolution to participate in “Dryuary” (no alcohol for the month) has held fast, primarily due to my public declaration to you that I would do so.
A friend I’ve done the month-long abstention with in the past caved in the first week. When I ribbed him about it, he said, “Hey, I didn’t publicly declare it in a newsletter!” Hence, the power of public declarations, a key point made at the beginning of this challenge.
This edition will wrap-up the final 3 segments of the wheel exercise: Financial, Spiritual and Social. Since I’m aiming for a gut-check score of 7 across all segments, you can see Financial was already there. Physical (last month’s segment) was as well, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for improvement—or measurement. I dropped 5 pounds and 2” off my waist in the past 4 weeks.
Financial has a couple components for me: 1) how much I’m making; and 2) how much I’m saving.
I’ve set a monthly target income goal for this year and, for January, I’m on track. However, when it comes to saving, I’ve been a passive investor only checking in 2-3 times each year with my advisor.
Frankly, the investment stuff bores me and I doubt even making a public declaration is going to change that. Since I’m on track earnings-wise and at level 7 on my wheel, I’m just planning to consistently track income and plan sales (prospecting, client care, etc.) in line with these plans.
On the other hand, my spiritual self was the second lowest segment. A spiritual advisor asked these questions: 1) Which gets you into more trouble, your body or your mind? (What’s your answer?) 2) How much time do you spend working out each week? (4-5 hours, sometimes more.) 3) How much time do you spend meditating/praying/being contemplative each week? (uh, you mean regularly?)
Clearly, taking some time each day to think about more than business, losing weight, whatever, makes sense. Even if you’re a regular churchgoer, one time each week probably is about as disciplined as going to the gym once each week. Maybe it’s time to plan a daily activity; for me, I’m committing to 15 minutes each day of February, to take a spiritual time out.
I’ve renewed my subscription to the Daily Word and (surprise!) they now have a neat phone app. Combined with Insight Timer, I can receive guided meditations or simply a silent mediation timer. If I can grow this to more than 15 minutes and/or once each day, that would probably be a good thing. At a minimum, it will elevate my spiritual segment closer to 7.
Finally, and somewhat surprisingly, my social self could use a boost as well. The old admonition, “All work and no play makes Jack (and Barry) a dull boy,” is still true. All play and no work probably makes Jack a broke boy, but today the tendency seems to be the reverse.
Though this probably means more play than work, I’m going to interpret it as becoming more socially active online to augment my professional segment. I said I was going to develop more digital content. 2018 is already a month old and I haven’t posted anything new. I will dedicate 30 minutes each day in February to online social activities (e.g., LinkedIn, sharing content via Twitter, etc.). I will also plot out a content calendar through June to raise my Social Selling Index (My SSI is currently 61). If you’re unfamiliar with LinkedIn’s SSI, go to https://www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi.
I also plan to catch up on a few Academy Award nominated movies, have a weekly date night, and reach out to at least one friend once/week for a catch-up call.
With these commitments in place, I’ve now set objectives for each segment of my own wheel and am happy to report making progress on all to date (other than the digital content creation). If you haven’t been following this column the past 4 months, I’d invite you to check out the first in this series and set—or reset—your plans and commitments for yourself.
