December 28, 2024

As I end my 2024 year, I find myself spending 90% of my time in my own home, most of it cuddled up with my newest and favorite possession – my ice machine that provides soothing relief to my new knee. I love my ice machine. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with my family, but it’s way easier to tolerate me as a husband and father when I spend a lot of time with my ice machine.

I’m a New Year’s resolution guy. I always have been. Apparently, less than a third of Americans set resolutions, and the older we are, the less likely we are to set them. Numbers be damned – I’m still setting them. I fail more than I succeed, but I like setting the bar a little higher than where I am now.

For a couple of years now, I have been wrapping up my new years resolutions into one word. My 2023 word was self-disclipline. And I began this year choosing the word masterpiece. I am finding that those two words are incredibly intertwined, and that you really cannot have one without the other.

I have been pondering what word(s) to choose for 2025. In doing so, I was reminded of goal setting while I was superintendent in Manhattan Beach. The most important tasks of an elected board of education is to determine the direction and goals of the school district, and to hire a superintendent who can make progress towards those goals.  In my eleven years with Manhattan Beach, our goals remained remarkably consistent – be fiscally responsible, help our students to be healthy and well-adjusted, improve student mathematical achievement, and develop students into better readers and writers. Then, we picked methodologies to help us achieve those goals, and we stuck with those methodologies as we sought to incrementally improve each and every year.

There are lots of ways to achieve your goals, but I strongly believe that you only make true and sustainable progress if you follow Jack Welch’s advice: “In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement it like hell.” I was lucky to work with a board that understood that, and stood steadfast in its commitment to slow and steady improvement, year after year.

So I am going to mimic Jack Welch and my old board (many who are blog readers!), and stay the course in 2025. My key word will again be self-discipline. Without it, there is no way I can be wildly, or even moderately successful at making each day a masterpiece. If I can make self-discipline a bigger and more constant process in my life, I just may have that occasional masterpiece. 

Those of you who know me well are keenly aware that this is a reach for me. I am easily distracted (squirrel!) and I am constantly working to refocus. One of the keys to golf success is fully concentrating for fifteen seconds as you are making each shot. Fifteen seconds! Anyone can do that. And yet I fail so often. “All” it takes is being present and being intentional. All I know is . . .  I can be better.

Making each day a masterpiece does not just mean getting a lot of stuff done. In fact, it can be the opposite. Here are some aspirational thoughts, as well as some pitfalls to avoid.

• I’ve been coming across many quotes from poet Mary Oliver. I’m not sure why she’s popping into my life right now. Here’s a recent one that my friend Nicole shared with me called Instructions for Living Life:

Pay Attention
Be Astonished
Tell About It

• It takes tremendous self-discipline to slow down, pay attention, and see all of the wonder that is in our daily lives, and to seek out experiences that will foster more wonder. My mother-in-law has made this her main focus over the past few years, and it’s making her pretty darn happy. I’m in.

• I want to avoid, as much as possible, activities that would be classified as “brain rot,” the Oxford Dictionary’s “word of the year.” OK Oxford – maybe it should be the “term” of the year, because two words are not one word. But overlooking that, this is the term that Oxford believes best encapsulates 2024. Their definition: “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” My guilty endless scrolling pleasures are Apple News and Facebook. I need to be self-disciplined enough to limit myself.  Life is too short for brain rot.

• I still believe in the paper checklist. I know I am better when I use one. Over the past two years, I’ve been printing out and utilizing a checklist four days a week on good weeks, and far fewer days on less disciplined weeks. I want to make this part of each day, so I can make the most of each day, reflect on each day, and plan for tomorrow.

• I want to learn from masters of self-discipline – Steven Covey, John Maxwell, and my friend Rick Lopez, who may be the most intentional, self-disciplined, and joyful person with whom I have ever worked. 

• John Wooden spoke of this masterpiece idea repeatedly (Jack Welch should have used Coach Wooden as the perfect example of steadfast implementation), so there are quite a few quotes attributed to it. Here is one that I found, and any of us could substitute a line or two or three to this, as we all have our own version of a daily masterpiece. That being said, this one is pretty darn good:

Be true to yourself
Make each day a masterpiece
Help others.
Drink deeply from good books.
Make friendship a fine art.
Build a shelter against a rainy day.
Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day

So that’s my focus for 2025. I’m seeking to stay the course, minimize brain rot, improve my self-discipline, and I’m hoping for as many daily masterpieces as possible. 

And all the while, implementing like hell. 

I hope that the new year brings you good health, joy, love, fulfillment, astonishment, and an abundance of reasons to smile.

Post #124 on www.drmdmatthews.com

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NOTES

I add these notes sections for a number of reasons:

• First and foremost, many of you are crazy enough to read them.
• My posts are long enough, so believe it or not, I do try to limit them. Ideas that don’t make the cut can end up in the notes section.
• I include additional resources, links, stories, for those of you who want to go a little deeper.
• I may include something from the comments made in my last post, or something I learned in the process of writing this one.
• And remember, the posts are long enough – no one is making you read the notes. (Dad – If you are going to critique me for how long my posts are, please stop reading now. This is the optional part!)

The New Year’s greeting picture is from our summer trip to Hawaii – From the left, greetings from Mike, Jill, Dawson, Kylie, Ryan, and Yesi.

I said I wouldn’t write about this in every post, but for those of you interested, here’s my knee replacement update, 3.5 weeks after my surgery.

• After two weeks, no more walker or any other assist devices, walking 7000 to 9000 steps (3-4 miles) a day and increasing; longest walk so far is 1.25 miles
• Physical therapy twice a week
• 110 degrees of flex in the knee – goal is 140 or more
• Off of all narcotics after two weeks (If they had been more effective, I might still be on them.)
• You know that feeling you get when you have a good stretch? According to my physical therapist, that’s not enough. It has to hurt
• Sleeping has gone from terrible to bad. Progress!
• Normal activities are returning – I’m now able to drive, cook, clean, and enjoyed grilling outside on Thursday. I used the Christmas prime rib leftovers to make Phllly Cheesesteak Sandwiches for Dawson and his friends. Big hit!

Here are some of the links I referred to:

• My 2024 New Year’s Aspirations Post
• My 2023 New Year’s Aspirations Post
• Article on the popularity of New Year’s resolutions from Pew Research