New Years Resolution: Be Conscious

In thinking about it hard, I have decided that my new years resolution (for work) will be to be more conscious. I find that many times we spend our days ‘going through the motions’ of meetings, e-mails, etc. We do this automatically and many times without thinking too deeply. I know that some days I leave after 10 hours in the office, but couldn’t tell someone what I actually did that day should they ask me. By ‘being conscious’ we think and act more deliberately and with intention and purpose.

There are many benefits to ‘being conscious’…

• We are aware of the intention of meetings and focus on outcomes and actions, vs just listening in
• We constantly are thinking about risks and ways to mitigate them proactively, vs reacting to them as they arise
• We make deliberate efforts to reach out to people to build relationships and engage them
• We step back and process information vs just accepting it

So let’s take off the auto-pilot switch and be more conscious. Do others have work-related New Years resolutions?