New Year's Resolution

Just around the corner, February is fast approaching and I was wondering about New Year’s Resolutions, (NYR). Who made them? And who is keeping them? Initially, I had decided NOT to do the whole NYR thing, (too much pressure), but then, I was chatting with a buddy of mine and I happened to mentioned my plan of skipping out on the entire process. He proceeded to 'dog me out' until I surrendered my position. He said that eliminating myself from this long-lived tradition was not acceptable. Skipping out was simply not an option. And besides, who did I think I was? Excluding myself from the eventual self-turmoil, doubt, and low-self -esteem that quite often accompany the failure that ultimate happens because most of us never stick to our NYR's anyway. This was precisely my point, in bagging the NYR concept, to avoid all of the psychological beating that supersedes the initial elation at the prospect of bettering one's resolves. His arguments were relentless, and eventually, I caved. I made a few NYR's. So far, so good. We’ll see.

Since I am now participating in the NYR tradition, I wanted, to know how everyone was coming along with his or hers? So, I did a little investigating. The first thing I discovered was that everyone has his or her own idea of what makes up an NYR; How many NYR.s should be made. To what extent a person should ‘work’ on achieving his/her NYR. Do the efforts reach far into the month of the upcoming Christmas season? Or do they quickly fad into February. What types of resolves make it onto the List? Is there even a ‘List’?

What defines a New Year’s Resolution anyway? Variations in perceptions as to what characterizes a NYR are very diverse. For some, they are nothing but a list of alcoholic induced hot-air promises made by drunk individuals trying to impress themselves with well-intended pledges of self-improvement. These people shouldn’t be driving themselves home from the NY Eve party much less making decisions that will affect their daily lives for the next twelve months. For others, they are half-hearted agreements consisting of vague stabs of self-improvement merely for show, or made out of habit. Still, there are others who continue to make sincere strong commitments to change for the better. Who aim for the perfection that may very well elude them. And of course, there are those who, almost like me, have long since abandoned the challenge, deeming it a salvation, (the actual abandonment), of psychological well being.

Another issue concerning NYR’s is the number made. For some odd reason, I’ve always made several, at least three, and sometimes more. However, I quickly determined that not everybody shares my gung-ho attitude when committing to an entire year of change. In fact, most of the people I’ve spoken with make only ONE NYR! This was the case with my buddy who so ardently persuaded me into the NYR obligation. One New Year’s Resolution? Can you get away with that? Why wasn’t I ever told? I’m gonna have a serious talk with my mother about this. Nevertheless, there are those of us who do make several New Year’s Resolutions. A List. Overzealous on our parts, but our intentions are honest. The List is constructed of items, which we feel need improvement, character development, physical fitness, and nutritional health to name a few. Often times, the list is made with no plan of implementation attached.

Another discovery I found was that a large percentage of people feel that while they may whole-heartedly want to achieve their NYR goals, they recognize that failure is a more accurate reality. For them, myself included, an item’s mere appearance on ‘the list’ increases it failure rate to 64%. Hence, my recent decision to discard the concept all together.

During my quest to fully understand this long participated in tradition, I observed several distinctive similarities occurring in the development of a successful New Year’s Resolutions. First of all, clearly state your NYR(s). Vague goals will only bring you vague success. Second, devise a plan of attack. Lack of an assault strategy, for most of us, marks the beginning of our demise. A step-by-step proposal of execution is an essential ingredient in achieving success. For instance, if one of your goals is to become a published author of an article you’ve written, than create a month-by-month mini-goal planner; In January, the rough draft will be finished. In February, the final draft will be completed, In March the article will be submitted, etc. The monthly planner provides a map of directions to follow and helps to keep us on task. Third, give yourself at least one goal, which will provide you with pleasure in its attempt to seek it

I thoroughly enjoyed interviewing people about their goals and hopes for the upcoming year. Everyone’s answers proved information, insight and even humor toward my investigation. However, the most unique response came from someone who shared their goals without me even asking her. She decided that because she was turning 40, that her NYR would be to try something new every month. Something she had never done before. So that when she became old and gray, she could look back on her life and enjoy all of her interesting memories. January’s new activity was to enter a tennis tournament. In February, she will be attending a pottery making class and she even plans to go ski diving. I guess that’s what you call taking your New Year’s Resolution to new heights!