Every January our team at The Potentiality engages in our New Year’s tradition of making public commitments about how we will realize our potential as professionals, parents, partners, and human beings. For 2018, Godfrey, Michael, Kurt, and I are leveraging our talents and stretching ourselves by being present, patient, active, and connective. Here’s how we will realize our potential in 2018.
John’s reflections and goals
Being present and saying less is hard for verbal-processing, spotlight-loving guys like me. Through personal reflection, ongoing feedback and a 360˚ survey that I sent to several colleagues, I know that I’m improving when it comes to being presnet, but the results are inconsistent when it comes to listening deeply and setting the stage for others to lead. I need to do better. While it was a bumpy year professionally, I am incredibly proud of the value I added as a parent last year, which included a very awesome three month paternity leave that has resulted in connections with my sons that is hard to quantify and are definitely lifelong lasting.
In 2018 I will focus on a few big goals and the habits required to bring them to life every day. While I’ve improved on being saying less and listening more, I can do much better, so I will continue to spend a ton of energy on this goal. I will also lead a big piece of strategic work. And I will improve on my fitness. To do this, I will build the following daily habits:
- Being fully present and ensuring that others feel that I am, too
- Asking more questions
- “Taking a breath” (or three) to allow others to step into the conversation
- Setting context with simplicity and clarity and following-up in writing so everyone is clear
My health and wellbeing were strong in 2017 – I avoided illness, shed some weight around my soft/squishy middle, and developed better sleeping habits. This year will be about fitness, with the ideal result being my participation in “The Tour de Godfrey et Kurt”.
Kurt’s reflections and goals
Last year I pledged to focus my attention and energy on my newborn son and make every effort to live in the moment and savour the great, the good and the downright boring. I think I accomplished this – for the most part. Last year I took six months of paternity leave, which gave me a great opportunity to really get to know baby Sagan. I also wound down some volunteer commitments – freeing up evenings and weekends for family time.
This year, I want to focus on two things. The first thing is a small (but important) lifestyle shift. I want to decrease the amount of Netflix I’m watching and scale up the amount reading I’m doing in the evening. To fuel that fire, I’m going to hit up the dynamic combination of the Goodreads, Kindle and the VPL apps once a month (at least) to secure a steady stream of good reading materials. A second more cerebral goal is to more intentionally practice patience, both in my professional and personal life. Taken together, I hope this coming year will be one that’s both thoughtful and intellectually stimulating.
Godfrey’s reflections and goals
As I look back on what I set out to achieve for the year that was 2017, all in all I did ok. Tap into my positive psychology when things got rough – check. Carve out time for friends – check. Continue to grow and challenge myself at work – check.
For 2018, I’m keen to do more of the same, only better. While I did make time for friends last year, it was often hap-hazard. And now that so many of us are parents, I’m excited for all of us to get together more as families and evolve our friendships into other areas. Sure there’s still a place for beer with the guys, but in order to build our parental community, more playdates and family picnics are in order.
Like Kurt, I’m also going to seriously scale back on how much screen time I allow myself in the evenings. There’s a whole world of good literature waiting for me in 2018. Netflix wont help me grow intellectually this year (sorry Narcos), but good books sure will – I just need to turn off my tablet.
Lastly, I will do one Triathlon this year. Stay tuned for next year’s report back on how that went!
Mike’s reflections and goals
2017 was an intense year. I set out to create space for active and creative personal time, to maintain a helpful list-making process, to delegate more in order to focus on the most important tasks, and to automate my most frequent business processes in service of higher-impact priorities.
Looking back at the goals I set a year ago I’m feeling like I’ve been mostly successful on the professional side, but less so in creating space for active and creative personal time.
I’ve found making time for executing long-planned creative projects the most challenging. It’s been on my list of goals for a few years now. I don’t think that’s a good sign, and I do feel a gap in this important part of my life.
I’m at a bit of a point where, barring a drastic change, my career is progressing steadily and to truly enrich my life I’m better off pursuing more than just work.
So, my goals for 2018 are:
- Complete my planned mixed media project.
- Run a 10k race injury free by June.
- And if I complete those two…
- Complete the certification I’m after to keep advancing my career.
These are all reachable and if I hit those first two I’ll be pleased. Throw in the third goal and 2018 could be one for the books.