Everyone starts out each New Year by proclaiming that it will be their “best year ever.” Low and behold, when December rolls around, many people look back and wonder why it didn’t turn out that way. More often than not, it’s not because of anything we do. Rather, it’s because of the things we don’t do. Here are 3 reasons why 2016 probably will fall short of your expectations.

You’re insane – maybe not in the medical sense but you’ll continue to do the same things you’ve always done. You won’t exercise regularly. You won’t try new ways of doing things. You won’t take some risks. You’ll go through the same boring protocols and call it progress. You won’t get out of your comfort zone – even for a minute! So you’ll actually live that age-old definition of insanity – doing the same things over and over again while expecting different results.

You won’t let go – of things that don’t work or are simply irrelevant. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” is your mantra and you refuse to budge. You won’t accept that some so-called traditions aren’t traditions at all – they’re simply bad tactics for the current reality. You’ll blame your shortcomings on immaterial factors. You’ll hang onto outdated practices. You won’t do anything resembling business process improvement.

You don’t learn anything new – you now everything already, right? It’s impossible that someone out there might have a more effective way of doing what you’re trying to do. It doesn’t matter how wildly successful they are – you’ll just chalk it up to luck and continue down the road to mediocrity. You won’t read new books, blog posts, articles, or research about your field or industry. You won’t take a professional development course. Leadership development is not something you’d be interested in. You won’t pay attention to market and consumer trends because they don’t really tell you anything. It’s all a conspiracy to get you to spend more money, isn’t it? You won’t change a thing.

 Take another look at all of the above. If you want things to change, take a polar opposite approach. Read new books, take some risks, don’t blame, and get out of your comfort zone. Then next December, instead of asking “why not,” you’ll be priming yourself to do even more in 2017!

What are your thoughts on this? Is anything missing from this list? Are these thoughts realistic or are they too harsh? Comment below and let’s get a discussion going!

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