The Winner Takes It All

Djokovic. Nadal. Brilliant. Just watching the Australian Open Final got me wishing I'd paid a little more attention in my tennis lessons. Could I have been a contender? No, not a chance. There's no way in hell that my dainty sliced backhand would have got anywhere near the kind of standard these very special athletes have achieved.

Still, there are times I do wonder how good I could have got (or could still get) in certain endeavours - football, darts, tiddly winks and so on. World class? Probably not. But in a way it's probably not the point. It's about beating the competition - and, for me, that "competition" equates to an earlier version of myself. I'll never be the next Nadal or Djokovic but I can be the next version of me - better than last week's version.

Start!

Life is not a spectator sport. Fact. 

I started 2012 in a bit of a funk. A very good Christmas was followed by a great little warm winter break, only to be then followed by that unpleasant kicker of day one back at work. Unlike those that are all guns blazing with New Year's resolutions and targets for the year, I normally am a bit of a slow starter. Dark clouds and hibernation tend to be more my thing for early January. 

Today, however, I decided to take control. Yes, the year starts now. Over the years I've collected books, articles and insights from inspiring luminaries such as Steven Covey, Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Jim Rohn, the Barefoot Doctor, Eckhart Tolle and so on. And I've attended so many different types of courses as well - a bit of personal development here, a little spirituality there. Full of goodness. I realised, though, that I've become a bit of a collector - a gatherer of great ideas and outlooks on life, but not actually using them in any coherent or disciplined fashion. Finding balance in the "mind, body, spirit" story is clearly an area of interest for me and I can certainly talk the talk. But I don't walk the walk enough. Yes, in fits and starts, and probably more than the average Joe, but still not enough for what I want to represent. It's great having the pull of awareness but I'll get more value, in my opinion, from the push of initiative. And for this to happen I've got to swallow a bit of manly pride and allow myself to make more mistakes and accept that I don't always have to be right. Scary.

So today I've been trawling through the books, the articles, the insights, noting down some of the key messages and "best bits". It was time to synthesize as it was all getting a bit cluttered. I'm looking for a mix-and-match masterplan that works for me - stuff that I can take into the real world, pushing me forward for this year and beyond rather than just residing in my head. We all go into this New Year's resolution gig with the best intentions. There's no one size fits all and there are no guarantees. We may well fail because of having fuzzy, too many or unrealistic goals, or simply poor planning. It happens. I've got to consider that. But if I do mess up, I don't want it to be because I didn't give it a darn good go. Watch this space.