The concept of the New Year resolution started around 4000 years ago with the agricultural Babylonians. During their ancient annual Akitu festival, which included crop harvesting and appointing a new king, the Babylonians focused on pleasing their Gods. Over twelve days they made promises to their Gods that they would pay debts and return borrowed tools. Keeping this promise would gain them favouritism from the Gods in the coming year.
Other cultures adopted a similar belief around New Year's resolutions. In ancient Rome 46 B.C, the new calendar was introduced by Emperor Julius Caesar, making January 1st the start of the year. Caesar named the month after the two-faced God Janus. Similar to the Babylonians, the Romans offered sacrifices and made promises to Janus to demonstrate good behaviour in the new year.
UNDER PRESSURE
It’s these traditions that we have to thank for the reason most of us feel the pressure around mid-December to be better versions of ourselves in many aspects of our lives once January 1st rolls around.
Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash
Today, we live in a society where most of us on Instagram (I’m picturing all those influencers as I type this paragraph) are bombarded with the ‘positive vibes only’ motto thrown in our faces 24/7. Everything looks so shiny and soul-aligned on social media that you can’t help but feel inferior sometimes and strive to keep up and think ‘I gotta be better.’
Psychologist and lecturer at ACU’s School of Behavioural and Health Sciences, John Mahoney states “we’re drawn to the attraction of new beginnings, and we appreciate the fact that we make mistakes and that we’re fallible. The year in review might highlight some of the mistakes and errors we’ve made and prompt us to do something different.”
HOW WE ROLL
At Nexus we are goal-oriented filmmakers. Our production company could not produce and execute the number of shoots (both feature and short) that we do a year, or each quarter, without a set goal. We plan goals for each project separately, and we have varied steps for each.
In no way do New Year's resolutions factor into our plans. We believe you should always have an overall goal in the back of your mind for the new year. You must also have a plan to make it stick, and a way for your goals to unfold successfully each month.
SET YOUR GOAL POSTS
This is easily achieved by creating a month to month spreadsheet for each goal, with a vertical column of months, and a horizontal column of steps. Fill in the boxes of the month you want a task to be completed with a different colour representing each month. If this is too confusing, or you are not a visual person, try a written listed plan moving down month by month. List the month as a headline and the tasks as dot points.
A big part of this process and to achieve the goals in your plan is to reassess these goals often to see if they are still on track. That is the only way you are going to make your goals have longevity and to gain success. It’s also a way to avoid having the feelings of failure by the end of January, because now your plans extend that expectation and it’s all laid out in front of you.
In the past we have also set deadlines that seemed a little tight. This is for a good reason. We say that we want the edit for our film to go to our colourist on a certain day, so we book it in with them. That way, we have accountability and we know we must hit that target. No excuses. No going back. If we do back track, we look unprofessional and stuff people around, and we always strive to avoid that outcome.
Then we take the steps to make it happen by breaking down the many mini-steps that go into each larger goal. Anyone who has ever achieved anything that looks humongous at first, such as a big idea for a film shoot, knows there are many steps to walk to reach that goal.
Taking these steps at a steady pace is not only better for your stress levels, it’s also great for you experience wise. We grow as creatives when we look at the steps and take them with precise drive and execute with passion.
NO SHORTCUTS
A vision board example
If we take shortcuts (avoid steps) such as not bothering to do the weekly marketing for a film, which can simply be following three similar accounts of Twitter, because you see it as a step you don’t have time for, you miss out on building an audience which is a benefit in the long run. Plus you miss the experience of what it was like to do it and a connection with your audience.
By avoiding steps we often miss the experience of being in the moment, being involved and present in the project. In the end the project suffers as it is a missed opportunity to try something new or to elevate that project to a greater level.
Delegating is not skipping steps as we all have to play to our strengths in most instances, even though delegating may seem like it’s a ‘pass off’.
Passing on tasks that are ‘minor’ which allows us to focus on the ‘major’ is a good move. Experience does come with doing, so why not try something and if it’s not to your standard or if it’s taking you too long to learn, pass it on and focus on the next step for your project. As long as you know it’s a step and acknowledge it as such, you are not avoiding the step. Also, knowing when to pass it on and when to play is a business lesson best learnt early on. It’s a time saver and time is your best commodity.
For example, with our micro-short web series Life Improvised Ivan takes care of all the post production for each film. Included in this overall task are the basic steps — edit, colour grade, sound design and music selection. We once paid others to do these steps for us. The result was financially heavy, and that Ivan didn’t learn new skills. We learnt these tasks are not worth delegating and the result was that Ivan learnt a lot; we now have decent online content going out on time, and we saved money in the short and long-term.
VISIONARY APPROACH
If you are feeling overwhelmed by your tasks for the year and the number of steps, try taking a step back. Think about your overall goals for the year and create your yearly vision board. This can be an offline or online vision board. Fill it with images and text that you want to reflect the upcoming year and that of course match your overall goals.
What also helps is taking a brief moment to be grateful for what you achieved each day with a grateful list. It’s a simple and short practice to implement into your day, either first thing in the morning, or before bed as you reflect on a day passed. Say it to yourself, look back on how you felt, and write it down if you feel moved. Aim for five items, even if they seem minor (for example you are grateful for getting out of bed with enough rest to conquer your tasks) add them to your list.
FOLLOW THROUGH
The aim of each year is to get a couple or maybe three larger goals smashed out and completed successfully. No half ass attempts because you filled your table with a feast of ideas you couldn’t chew, let alone swallow them all. We meet a lot of filmmakers who talk about everything they will do (or everything they can do better) but nothing ever gets completed. Do not be one of those filmmakers.
If you don’t have the resources to complete a particular project right now, set it aside, and work on something smaller that you can complete. It is better to be filming than talking about filming.
CONCLUSION
The last couple of years our goals for Nexus have been simple: keep creating content. We aim to film or release at least two features a year, either narratives or documentaries or both. Hitting this goal means we benefit from a flowing and varied income stream with money always coming in to create more content.
These goals do not require New Year’s resolutions to achieve as they are the same every year. They are just broken down into projects, then steps. They are professional goals, long-term goals, and they are also wrapped up in our lifestyle. January 1st has no significance one way or the other. We don’t set New Year’s resolutions; we set life resolutions.
Written by Sarah Jayne.