PAUSE AND PONDER BEFORE YOU FINALLY EMBARK ON YOUR 2016 NEW YEAR RESOLUTION

 By Nnabugwu Chizoba

From my years of active involvement as Human Resource/Capacity Development and Entrepreneurship trainer and consultant, I have interfaced with youths from different backgrounds and age categories.

Towards the end of 2015, as always, I embarked on a free entrepreneurship training for selected youths, comprised of graduates and undergraduates from various disciplines. I created this programme, bearing in mind that each year, people in my side of the world, join other parts of the Globe, in what has become a yearly ritual, but universally recognized as “New Year Resolution”. I designed the programme as a mechanism to tap from what I sure beliefs, and considers an excellent tradition, loaded with enormous opportunities for meaningful engagement of the mind for a productive lifestyle.

I reasoned that a universally accepted and acclaimed moment of sober reflection and decision making about the future, would be a fertile ground to mine from and to harvest the innate potential of the youths. I remain glad and very grateful to God Almighty that I did. The result has been very wonderful, since the programme birthed.

“New Year Resolution” as the name implies, is synonymous with denouncing, rejecting and deciding to avoid those tendencies considered inimical to growth and development of self on one hand; and resolving on the other hand, to engage in a lifestyle and strategic approaches that promise more productive and rewarding results.

 

In line with the objectives of harnessing the abundant human resource endowment of the average Nigerian youth, and to also actively energize, the “can-do-spirit” of the Nigerian, I made this year’s programme spicy and stimulating, with a generic topic, to ensure that the input of participants are very relevant to their needs and aspirations. My discourse centered on the topic “Goal Setting as a Problem Solving Tool”. 

The topic presented a glaring opportunity for me to establish the link that exists, between the topic and the celebrated “New Year Resolution” and the impact a skillfully-developed “New Year Resolution” would have on the participants, in terms of efforts to attain worthwhile, objectives.

At the end of the event, essentially, the following, were achieved in a systematically inspiring, engaging and practically oriented manner:

• Reorientation of the participants, to change their perception of “New Year Resolution.
• Structured and strategic approach towards influencing what determines, technically, input into their “New Year Resolution”.
• Participants saw reason and established that “New Year resolution” is a working tool, a binding force, a constitution of a kind; and resolved to treat it as such.
• The participants understood the fundamentals of Problem Solving, productivity and the need to be committed towards delivering on their resolutions
• Established the linkage between goal attainment and achieving worthwhile results.  
• Participants understood the fundamentals of Goal Setting and Problem Solving.
• They were able to set inspiring and measurable Goals,
• They were able to identify conflicting goals,
• They understood the role of unforeseen events and intervening forces.

From experience and the benefit of hindsight, I know that many people, that embark on New Year Resolution, year in, year out, this year inclusive, do so and will still do, in an awkward and hurriedly concocted manner. The implication has been that New Year resolutions hardly produce meaningful impact on the people. This is not what they ordinarily would like to settle for, but in fairness to them, they lack the requisite skill.

The participants as I mentioned earlier, were graduates and undergraduates only. The frustrations they expressed in the early stage of the programme, was a clear indication that many people lack basic skills of Goal Setting.

The participants fall into two categories:

• Those already in business and
• Those not yet in business, but desperate to set up one

 The second group comprised of:

• Those with what they call the means (Money) to go into business and
• Those who do not have the so called means

 The lessons from them were quite revealing, particularly on their earlier impression and understanding of what Goal Setting actually is and what it takes to achieve one. This is not peculiar to them. Many people, have the challenge, yet we expect tangible results at the end of the year. Between those already in business and those wishing to take the plunge, their knowledge of goal setting is basically the same.

In a world, where it is becoming easier to squeeze water out of stone, than it is to ache a living, lacking the skills of Goal Setting and Problem Solving, is tantamount to the use of abracadabra and promotion of superstition. This pattern of life, lacks merit in the 21^st century. To set out in the year without a very clear direction, apart from being injurious, is life threatening and devastating. The sigh of relieve expressed by the participants, after the programme bear great testimony to this.

Before delving into the business of goal setting, I took time, as it is usual in every of my programmes to deepen the participants’ orientation about business. To this end I told them that, Business, is an effort by Man to resolve tension between economic needs and social challenges. I also drew an in depth analysis, to establish that, it is in resolving challenges that the opportunity to serve humanity, empower self, create jobs and generate wealth is hidden. Similarly, I made my participants to realize that it is through problem solving, that they compete with others, and set the platform to express themselves and register who truly they are.

The above, I belief are very relevant in creating a connect and setting in motion a glaring opportunity for the participants to understand, that Goal Setting, is a means to overcome poverty and tension, and as a matter of fact a means to balance demand and supply, as well as an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to handle pressures, accommodate variations, prove their relevance and capacity to remain unflinching in their pursuit of noble objectives, in the face of conflicting demands.

From the contributions and conclusions of the participants, immediately they found the missing link between what they knew before and the new knowledge they acquired from the programme, they resolved to see a “New Year Resolution” as a pathfinder and life builder.

I make bold to say, without any iota of doubt, that the ability to acquire the basic skills of Gold Setting and Problems Solving, and by extension developing a dependable “New Year Resolution” holds the key between success and failure. I therefore urge all those without the skill of Goal Setting and Problem Solving, to acquire them. Without the skills, the best anybody can do in terms of developing a working document out of “New Year Resolution”, is a “desire pack”, or “wish box”, instead of a road-map, which a “New Year Resolution” is.