It’s Time To Be Your Own Hero4 min read

I came across some interesting statistics on new year resolutions. The University of Scranton Journal of Clinical Psychology conducted a research on 2015 New Year Resolution and found out that only about 8% of people successfully achieve their resolutions. According to their findings, the top 10 resolutions that people make are:

1. Lose Weight
2. Getting Organized
3. Spend Less, Save More
4. Enjoy Life to the Fullest
5. Staying Fit and Healthy
6. Learn Something Exciting
7. Quit Smoking
8. Help Others in Their Dreams
9. Fall In Love
10. Spend More Time with Family

So, what does this mean for the rest of us? It simply means that wishing is not going to change us but rather it takes a thinking mind with a strong bias for action.

If you are not in the groove of the new year, I think it’s time for you to do that. I have never been a big fan of New Year resolutions, they just never worked for me. Some time later, I got introduced to setting New Year goals – I can’t say this really worked for me either. I’ll tell you the reason why.

You see I am very much of a creative story-teller-thinker kind of guy. I like to see everything as subplots to one big story plot. Once I was able to get that structure into my planning approach, it made everything else easy to follow. I’ll explain how shortly.

First, I decide the areas of life I want to write my hero story for. Once I choose that, I create my heroic vision for that section. Second, I identify who I need to be and the villains in the story. I then define my strategy for taking out these villains. This becomes part of the basis for establishing my New Year goals.

You can see how this works in practice by looking at the process flow for a spiritual life stream.

Here’s another one looking at a sample financial life stream.

It’s important to create this for the different life streams that you have. Here are some life streams that you can work with – you don’t need to have for every life stream but you probably need to have for every purpose group

I like to relate everything to the big picture – simplifies living life for me. It also helps me not to become obsessed with goals as an end but rather as a means to an end. The heroic vision gives me a growth mindset because I know there will always be more villains in my story. It keeps me from been complacent.

This approach is really not novel – all I just did was turn our deep desires to embrace heroes from stories into something that works for me. One of the reasons most of us like to read fiction, watch movies or TV series is because we want to see how the hero comes of age and takes out the villain. Why not write your own life story with you are the hero?

For example, the hit series 24 had a very simple premise – Jack Bauer exists to take out any terrorist that stand against any US interests. That is his heroic vision. Every season, the villains or threats change and so his strategy or goals change but you know that his vision does not change. No matter the government agency he works with – it’s the same heroic vision.

Once you have a clear heroic vision, it would help you to hold on. You could also alter your strategy & goals during the year but you are very clear that your vision is being lived out. You are living for the long term. It’s simple way of planning your year to make sure you make every year better than the year before.

It’s time to be the hero is your own TV series – this is season xxx (you choose the number).

I look forward to you becoming a part of the 8% that live out and achieve their lives' goals.