Op-Ed

2024: Review, Resolve, Set a Goal

ByOLUWASEUN ABOSEDE

PublishedNovember 14, 2023

The conclusion of one year and the commencement of another provide a significant timeline for us to evaluate the success or shortcomings of any endeavor and to resolve on the necessary steps to take for the new year to be an improvement on the past ones by setting achievable goals.

A goal is an idea of the future you desire, envisage, plan, and commit to achieving. We attempt to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. However, to have a goal, you must first have a resolution. Resolution is what will provide clarity for goals; it is an intention that you need to come up with your goals.

Many may not like the idea of making New Year’s resolutions. Still, irrespective of personal preferences, the beginning of a new year is an opportune time to review achievements from the past year and set new goals aimed at improvement in the coming year.

You do not necessarily need to reveal to the world your resolutions for the new year, but it is advisable to make every year count positively for you.

You may be doing fairly well in your workplace or business. Even so, stopping at one station of progress is akin to moving backward. Hence, it is crucial to keep striving to surpass the current records personally held in your workplace or among your business contemporaries. Complacency will set you back. Therefore, it is strongly advisable to be ready to raise standards far beyond where others can catch up with you. Review your past performances, resolve, and set new goals. Standards do not remain static; what was good last year may not be so in the new year.

Don’t stop at being good; strive to be better and ultimately the best. Being the best at every point in time will be good enough for your work. The business ideas that excelled for you in the past year might not work as effectively in the coming year. The monopoly of ideas is an illusion, and market competitors are working hard to displace you unless you have what it takes to show you are truly the leader in your field of endeavor.

Be innovative as well, for it is key to surviving at the top. Keep improving on what you are offering and be more enterprising about issues all around, even when it seems unnecessary because to earn maximum revenue, you must explore every possible option and not be satisfied with just the income you are making, but be able to make maximum income and promotion.

Individuals and organizations must be determined. It is a key and all-time choice that must be made. Desire to excel no matter the limitations you may have to contend with. Where there is a will, according to the popular saying, there will be a way. You may never know what you are able to accomplish until you make an attempt. Your hunger for excellence must be such that you will not be easily satisfied with average performance.

Excellent and achievable goals will make it possible to create new records and heights that others will be struggling to meet. It is not how long you have been doing anything; it’s how well you do it.

If you are not the leader in your field, benchmark against the best and stop comparing yourself with those you are better than. Learn from those who are ahead of you and work really hard to be reckoned with.

I would have loved a situation where Nigeria, as a country, could review the negatives surrounding the 2023 general elections despite the introduction of BVAS, which we assumed was here to stem the effects of electoral malpractices and the subsequent split elections that took place last weekend. I conclude that, of course, we have made some progress in our electoral reforms, but we need to use 2024 as the gateway to build strong institutions that will uphold the gains we have made. No law, no matter how good it is, can work without good people to effect it. I, therefore, advocate for more Nigerians to come on board in demanding better and more virile institutions. Otherwise, it will all end up as a motion without movement.

OLUWASEUN ABOSEDE

Comrade ABOSEDE OLUWASEUN “Safety” , is a Unionist, a right activist and a Social Crusader.