You are OK as you are
Unless you're not
Sometimes that just needs to be said.
Especially in January, where far too many people will be looking at the numbers they have written in their exercise books, and decide that now, in the midst of a frozen winter (here in the UK), that their life is ripe for change.
The idea of seasons make sense. A solstice happens and the world gradual changes in a repeatable cycle. But the idea of a year – which isn’t standardised across a great number of faiths and beliefs, other than for convenience sake, is nothing more than an excuse to pop a few corks and hope your luck will change.
I work with people who were in the office on 31st December and back in on the 2nd January. They picked up the work they left at 5pm, less than 48 hours earlier, as though nothing had happened. Weekends have a bigger impact than New Year’s Day would have done.
Yet a lot of you will be thinking: How can I be a better DM in 2025?
The key issue for those of us around you, is that if you weren’t already enacting changes or improvements weeks or months earlier, then a new year is not the answer to your problems.
Let me try to be as cynical as possible, while I break this down.
If someone bought you a “How to Bullet Journal” book, when you are not really a note taker. Then learning how to separate pages into points and squiggles is not going to unlock some kind of secret sauce.
Is 2025 the year you will become mindful? To be honest, I think it’s all a load of baloney packaged as apps or colouring books to make someone else rich. Never do something simply to make another person rich.
Pomodoro is the Italian for tomato. It’s not a quick fix to make sure you have breaks throughout the day.
Stoicism was practiced by Roman Emperors who spearheaded genocide and maintained slavery as an accepted custom. It’s currently something Tech Bros promote as a means to show they are balanced and at one. Unless someone is stopping them from making money.
I am not for one minute saying you don’t need to grow, to learn and develop, but that’s part of taking a career from leaving education until you retire. Not a knee jerk reaction to each new year.
If you are unsure how much you need to change as a DM – engage in a 360 with colleagues and leaders. Ask them to share their thoughts with you, especially in terms of growth and areas of improvement.
Use this information to baseline your skills and understanding, then evaluate what you need to work on or how you want to grow.
Do it all without an app, a best-selling book or a timer that you snooze, repeatedly, because meetings are an hour – and not 45 minutes.
Have a bit more faith in your ability and just keep being the you we need, or an incrementally improved version of you that you want to become.
And absolutely no major life changes or mindsets simply because a Pope, by approving a new calendar in 1582, decided that the world needed a restart as another year went by.
/END