My New Year’s Resolution this year has been to do something new every day. I am just about a week from the end and am happy to say that I have been able to keep this up.

I plan to share a lot more about the experience of doing something new every day in future blogs but on this special day I want to write about the things I haven’t done, yet as a form of wish list.

Let me provide some context. The act of doing something new every day is liberating, but it has its limitations. You can freestyle it once in a while but to make it, I mean really do 365 new things, it requires some planning. In fact, you can kind of tell the days that I did freestyle because the new things are more happenstance and less interesting.  You have to have vision.

I think I liked the “get out there” new things the best and they are the inspiration for the future. Sadly, there weren’t enough of them in the year. This is in part because I wasn’t physically ready for them. For example, I took a little chance and tried paddleboarding up at The Forks of the Credit. I don’t have good balance and without practice, I fell, early and often. I was so bruised after the attempt that I looked like I had been beaten. It is now four months later and I still have some of the bruises, but I absolutely loved every second of it.

After trying something new every day, I have an appetite for the impossible now. I am going to run a marathon. I am going to swim faster than I did when I was 17. I am going to take lessons from Evel Knievel and have some guts and not do something out of fear of being hurt. I probably won’t jump the fountains at Caesar’s Palace, but I am not going to let my age or physical limitations get in the way of meaningful achievement. I’m serious.

I am going to finish writing a book and publish it. I am going to be successful in implementing an entirely new business idea. I am going to find meaningful projects in other parts of the world. I am going to become recognized as a thought leader. I am going to become friends with a whole new crowd of people and have deeper relationships with many I already know now.

I am going to help someone. I mean really help someone, for nothing more than the personal satisfaction of helping someone.

Tonight on the news there was a story about a woman who started a wish tree. Every December, she has set up tags, markers and a laminating machine near a tree and let people create their wish tag. She says she did it to change her own attitude. Every season there are thousands of tags created by friends and neighbours and passersby; some more virtuous than others. The message: hope is important, no matter what you hope for. Articulating your wishes is helpful.  I am thinking of doing something similar, because I feel like as an HR Professional, it is important to encourage hope.

We in HR are generally known as a cautious, prudent bunch. Irrelevant. This has to stop. There’s so much more to helping people, helping a business than saying no.  We have to be hopeful.  We need more wishes.

To this I say to you, what are your wishes?  How can you inspire?  How can you make your goals bigger than yourself, and yet for yourself.  Well, make a resolution!