How To Take Over The World in 2021
By: David Chislett
Tags: Life, Meaning, Purpose, Change, New Year Resolution

How To Take Over The World in 2021

Photo by Ava Sol on Unsplash

I’m not so interested in trashing 2020 and focussing on what 2021 might bring me. I am more interested in what went right for me in 2020 and what that means for my overall mission in life in 2021.

Sure, 2020 put a spanner in the works. A big one. A nasty, hurtful one. But it’s out of my control and I learned long ago to reserve my energy for things that I can control.

My mission in life is to activate the inherent creativity of as many people as possible in this world. I do this because I firmly believe that creativity will save the world. I believe that the robotic way we educate ourselves, the factory assembly line way we work and the rigid, black and white social worlds we live in are wrong and need overthrowing.

But I am not a bomb wielding anarchist. I come with solutions: Be more creative. If you don’t like something, make something new to replace it with.

So as we get to this juncture of the year (as with any year) I am not busy with new year’s resolutions. No, I am busy taking stock with what happened this year.

What Lockdowns Taught Me

I learned that there is no time like now. The best time to start something new is always now. Not tomorrow or next week. Cut adrift and workless in lockdown, I realised that I had just been avoiding starting several things that are key to my vision for the future.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that they are solutions deferred… til tomorrow, til the end of the year. They see final outputs and products, not processes. In short, they are like fad diets: If you don’t change your lifestyle, you are unlikely to reap the benefits!

Taking Over The World In 2021

SMART goals and all of that traditional advice are all well and good. But they provide no defence against setbacks and unexpected happenings. But when we are already busy with something, what the outlines have begun to emerge, our resilience is so much greater. We have more capacity to weather the storm and start over again.

When you want to lose weight and fit into smaller jeans, having a binge weekend can mean you just give up. But when your weight loss is tied to a change of lifestyle that increases your happiness, improves your access to things you want and generally moves you across the board to your heart’s desire, it’s easier to write off a binge weekend and start again with the changes on Monday.

Just Start. And Start Again. And Again

I often say that humans do not suffer from a shortage of ideas, inspiration or motivation. What we seem to suffer from is an inability to just START! The smallest of first steps will lead you to the next and the next. It requires courage, vision and some kind of plan, but stepping off that first cliff is THE one thing you must do.

If you must have New Year’s resolutions, rather don’t promise that by the end of the year you will have reached or achieved some benchmark. Rather promise that tomorrow, you are going to start the things that you KNOW will lead you slowly to where you want to be. And promise to keep starting, even when things don’t go according to plan. Commit to taking as many small steps as it takes.

The big steps will take care of themselves.