The wonderful Iguazu Falls on a recent trip to Brazil

Very best wishes to you from the FED team for a happy new year. And we also wish you a conscious one! Why do I say this?

I was reading the other day that only around 8% of New Year’s Resolutions are achieved and it was a quote from my friend, Tony’s blog http://tonyreiss.com/2014/01/02/business-development-training-in-law-firms-isnt-working/ that had me thinking about why this is and how we can live today more of the life we want.

Tony quotes David Maister who writes in the oddly titled book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker:

The primary reason we do not work at areas in which we know we need to improve is that the rewards are in the future; the disruption, discomfort and discipline needed to get there are immediate.

To reach our goals, we must first change our daily habits now. Then we have to have the courage to keep up the new habits and not yield to all the old familiar temptations. Then, and only then, we get the benefits later.

My steer is, yes, work at those resolutions that give ‘rewards in the future’. But also think about how you can have more rewards now by being more the person you want to be each day, now, today.

You can do this by being more conscious each day in this new year, being conscious of ‘am I being now who I want to be?’, conscious of ‘am I up to something now?’, conscious of ‘am I getting the job done and also building relationships in this encounter now?’, and so on. You could check in each day on your way home; ‘have I been who I want to be?’ and if I’ve not fully, ‘how could I be before the end of the day?’

There are rewards available today as well as in the future. Be conscious and have them now.