For many people, the new year is a time to reflect. That’s because they still cling to the quaint belief that they can become happier and more productive. Enlightened managers like you know that self-reflection is like 10,000-mile maintenance: if the wheels haven’t come off yet, just keep driving.
Here are five ways to avoid thinking too much about the future, so that you can concentrate on repeating the same mistakes year after year:
1. Don’t make a plan for what you’d like to be doing in one, five, and ten years. Those things are so embarrassing to look at later on, when you’ve failed miserably. Better to not even think about it. Then, ten years from now when you’re selling batteries at Radio Shack, you can claim success and say, “Yeah, I planned it this way.”
2. Don’t write down your three greatest strengths and three greatest weaknesses, with examples of how they’ve manifested themselves and/or shifted over the past year. That’s just, like, so wimpy. You might as well take up yoga.
3. Don’t reflect on things you would’ve done differently during the past year. Negativity is the enemy of forward progress. If you have to think at all, think about your successes. And as long as you didn’t get fired, don’t worry about it. You got a paycheck, right? Stop whining and get on with your life.
4. If you did get fired, come up with five excuses that put the blame on others. Too smart for your boss? An anal accounting team that should’ve been focused on the big picture instead of some insignificant rounding errors in your budget? Mass defections from your team that were because of employee stupidity rather than your micromanaging?
5. Think about who’s playing in the upcoming Bowl games. Who do you think will win? Are you man enough to put a little wager on it? Did you remember to remind your spouse to buy chips and beer? Did she remember to put the beer in the fridge?
Remember, too much self-reflection can be dangerous. You may discover some deeply repressed memory that is best kept bubbling just beneath the surface. Sure, you may explode in a torrent of rage one day, or maybe just be unhappy your whole life and turn into a bitter and lonely old person who curses at children and whose only friends are pigeons. But that will happen anyway.
Look on the bright side: you’ll probably die of a heart attack long before then, and you’ll avoid all unnecessary self-reflection in the meantime. So just keep doing what you’re doing, and Happy New Year!
[Photo: Yuri Arcurs/Shutterstock]
