What will you commit to this year?

In January we SELECTED things important in our lives. We considered the garden of our lives - what needed to be there, what you wanted to get under control, what you wanted to weed out. And in February we understood what lies at your SOURCE: those sparks of life that fire you up and gets you going.

To plant is a commitment

This month’s theme is to consider what you want to commit to - what it is you will PLANT in the ground and continue to nourish and nurture until fully grown. I am sharing a number of ideas and activities that will help you with: the best conditions in which new things can grow; the habit setting that you might need to commit to in order to see your habit grow; and the strengths and achievements you bring with you to enable you to initiate, nurture and execute this new thing - action, state of mind, way of being.

This month, the resources are not about making quick change, hard or fast. Growth takes time. Sustained, established growth requires patience and a growing awareness of transformation that can be imperceptible to the naked eye - much like the seeds that you will plant out for your garden this summer. It also requires commitment.

The first step

This commitment to PLANTING seeds in the ground is the first and necessary action towards change and growth. It might take extra confidence or courage to take this first step. But it will also be this first step that will provide you with the evidence, and then the conviction, for the next. Those subtle changes down the line (the shoots emerging from the soil, the buds appearing, the flower blossoming) can ONLY take place if you plant the seed in the first place.

So if you are looking to make a change this year - let’s start planting the seeds so that you have the opportunity for that growth. Not all ideas need to be cultivated and nurtured to their full potential. Not all your seedlings will flourish. But within those seed trays will be an opportunity - the potential - for something big to happen. Every oak tree starts with an acorn, after all.

Where to begin…?

I would start with your strengths - and an achievement tree - two excellent reminders of what you are capable of already. When we want to PLANT new seeds, it is useful to check what tools we already have in the shed.

These activities, incidentally, you may have visited with me before. They still have value when revisited - things change, our experience and skillset may have grown, and if you’re anything like me - I shift and change as my children develop. We are all growing. So approach them with a beginners mindset - and see what else comes, when you give yourself the time and space to focus on the resources you have available to you.

Then check out James Clear’s Atomic Habits (which comes with a bit of a health warning…!) to ascertain what it is you might want to commit to this year. One of the best pieces of advice I was ever offered about making habits, is to be ready to fail at it. What’s the contingency when it all goes Pete Tong? How will you manage degrees of failure, or disruption, or not being as good as you’d like at something? Check out the piece on Growth Mindset, and Angela Duckworth’s short videos on ‘Grit’ to help you work out how to support yourself through the more challenging moments of habit forming.