By John Royer
20-20 – vs - 2020
The term 20-20 is commonly used to state how our vision is rated. 20-20 is considered perfect. The Year 2020 was NOT perfect by any means. As we begin to close every year, many of us often reflect back to see what we actually accomplished throughout the year. Others may choose to reflect on the things that they did not get accomplished in the past year. Either way, reflecting on what took place - what did not take place, what we accomplished – what we did not accomplish, etc. can prove to help motivate our path for goal setting in the upcoming year. Most people look to the upcoming year as an opportunity to improve their lifestyle or change something about themselves or their future. In doing so, reflecting on the past is a useful tool, but not the only tool that should be used. For example, reflecting too much on the past may cloud your judgement on what is actually attainable in the future. This mindset can cause a person’s thinking to become filled with disbelief that things can actually change for the better. If the year was filled with hardships that greatly outweighed accomplishments, one might focus too much time on reliving the hardships. Reflection must remain balanced with successes and failures to set attainable goals for the future. In other words, we must have good vision on what the future could have in store for us.
As we reflect on the past year it is easy to say it was different from many other years for a variety of reasons. COVID-19 introduced us into a new lifestyle where normal became anything but the normal we were used to. The fact that we are still dealing with the effects of COVID-19 presently, indicate that our old normal may not return for some time, if it even does. It is important that we take the lessons learned from the past year and make a diligent effort to not repeat them moving forward. We should always protect ourselves and our families by following the health officials’ guidelines for preventing the spread of the virus. We also must learn to live with it. We cannot shut our lives down to the point where we become so frustrated that we allow other things to affect our health such as, fatigue, mental anguish, and not eating healthy or exercise. We just need to think it through and do these things in a safe manner.
Looking forward, next year at Action-Waco is going to be filled with excitement and possibilities. The excitement of growth opportunities and the expansion of our business will present opportunities to many of us and allow us to expand our knowledge of the business and allow for potential career advancement. Changes such as this, can be the most powerful motivational tools. Using motivational tools can inspire us and help us to set our goals for the upcoming year.
I am personally looking forward to the upcoming year for many reasons, some that I have already mentioned. For me, next year brings the opportunity to expand my learning potential and interact with people in more face-to-face meetings, once we get past the COVID-19 isolation that we live with currently. Trust me, it will happen. I am also looking forward to having more students in the classroom and working with all the branches on employee training and other safety and health matters that arise. On our safety call this week, I discussed with the committee that our goals for 2020 were not met in full and the upcoming year will be more target focused on the specific goals that our committee can reach. The unpredictable and unprecedented COVID outbreak left many goals unattainable. Next years goals will use the lessons learned from this year’s goals when setting the targets we want to reach.
In summary, I just want to remind everyone to balance the good with the bad when reflecting and focus on the good when moving forward. You should also make a solid effort to keep your goals for the upcoming year ones that you can actually reach. When you set goals without a plan to reach them, they are unattainable and just become faint ideas that are never realized. Take the time to reflect, make a plan for the future, and finally, set reasonable goals that can be reached.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Everyone!!