New Year, New Tradition

Leadership

Jan 8

6 minute read

Tradition plays an important role for many societies around the world, especially during shared events like the start of the new year. At their best, traditions preserve cultural heritage and deepen our connections with each other.

So, as it’s a new year, and it’s traditional for people to share “new year, new start” ideas on LinkedIn, I would like to honour that tradition with this blog… but with a difference.

You know by now we love to be bold and try new things at FiveAndCo, so here are three new, new year traditions from around the world that we have adopted and adapted so that you can apply them to your leadership at the start of 2025!

Cuba: Throwing a bucket of dirty water out the front door

It’s not unusual to see buckets full of dirty water flying out of Cuban homes during the countdown to midnight on New Year’s Eve. It’s a symbolic act, cleaning up all the bad energy from around the house, and then throwing the dirty water out to make room for a fresh start.

Perhaps 2025 is your year to finally throw out negative ideas about yourself or your leadership. Perhaps you had a bad experience in 2024 that is still shaping your decisions. Maybe it’s something that someone said that just won’t let you go.

Whilst there is always room for an honest appraisal of strengths and weaknesses, if you ‘pull up a chair’ for every negative thought, it will take up permanent residence in your mind and take up a lot of room - squeezing out possibilities for new idea or growth.

If you think it’s time for you to “clean house”, try this.

First, write those negative thoughts down. Be as honest you can. Have a good read and then shred or burn them – throw them out as a symbolic start of a commitment to think and do differently.

It can help to say out loud that you are throwing out them as well.

It may sound odd, but a study in the Journal of Psychological Science in 2019 suggested that when people wrote down their thoughts on a piece of paper and then threw the paper away, it also helped them mentally discard those very thoughts.

Now you have done this, you have head space for the next tradition!

Russia: 12 seconds of silence before midnight

Russians say thank you to the past year by remembering its most important events on New Year’s Eve and then using the 12 seconds of silence before the stroke of midnight to make wishes for the year ahead. Apparently, some try to cram as many wishes in as possible during those 12 seconds.

When was the last time to truly set aside time to dream about your ideal year – what you want to achieve across each month of the year?

At the start of 2025, set aside 12 minutes somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed. For each minute, write down one simple goal for each month of the year. Don’t worry about perfecting the wording, just get down 12 goals.

Yes, we know that things change, meaning our goals must change too, but I promise you this - people who don’t set goals never achieve them.

Denmark: Jumping into the new year

Apparently at midnight, Danes will jump off a chair or sofa, metaphorically jumping into the new year. It’s seen as good luck if you do, and bad luck if you don’t. The leap is an act of jumping into the unknown – celebrating the chance that something new or exciting is yet to come.

We’re not going to suggest you jump off the nearest piece of office furniture but maybe this adapted tradition is for you.

If there is anything the last few years have taught us, it is the importance of moving forward, even in the face of not knowing.

Faced with a very novel situation, leaders can find themselves giving too much weight to the risks and asking too often ‘what if I fail?’. As a result, many take a step back and adopt a more cautious approach to challenge and opportunity.

In 2025 (and the years beyond), the pace of change, and the rapid evolution of critical ideas in the life sciences industry means there will be more times than ever when you simply can’t know all the answers but must move forward to succeed.

Leading yourself and others into lasting success is just as much about knowing how to deal with not knowing (and yet still taking a step forward), as it is about acting decisively on what you do know.

Yes, diligence is important. It’s often wise to consider risks and take soundings where you can.

But we cannot know (or control) the future. Sometimes the only way to find out is to jump in.

Maybe 2025 is your year to take a leap?