New Year Resolutions

They never work. At least for me. Its not like I haven’t tried. But somehow I can’t seem to manage sticking to them. So this year I think I will have no resolutions so I will have no guilt about not sticking to them. I have found that small victories work much better for me than big milestones. I can manage to get things done if I do them one small step at a time but every time I give myself anything along the lines of a resolution, I fail miserably. So I am not going to try so hard for anything specific this time around.

Lose a few pounds? Can’t seem to hang on to that monstrosity of a task. But when I decide that I won’t indulge in that extra helping of dessert, its much easier to see it through long enough to make a difference. Small victories. They work much better for me.

I am a big fan of lists. I make more lists than most governments around the world. And like most governments around the world, I can’t manage to tick off the completion box for most of them. From shopping lists to list of components for a project, to-do lists, reading lists, movie lists, dietary lists, list of lists, you name it, I have made it. You’d think that after all this I’d be an epitome of the most organized person but reality is far from it. Most of my lists never reach their predicted fullness. Most of the time I get bored and discard the list before finishing my agendas and move on. I spend more time making and organizing these lists than actually engaging myself in their individual tasks. As far as my brain is concerned, once a list is made, the battle is half won.

Even my Pocket PC has dedicated software for making lists. I am not even going to comment on the state of my Outlook Calendar, it’s a big red bar of things-to-do from the top of the screen to the scrolled bottom. And they all have the red star of a high priority item, even if it just says that I have to pick up eggs and bread on the way back from the office today. Of course, there are many important items there as well, birthdays and anniversaries and project deadlines for important clients but overall its just mundane stuff that anyone with a handful of grey cells could remember wholesale.

Which brings me back to my resolutions – or lack thereof. This year I am just going to go by feel. Try to eat right. Give more time to the kids. Exercise. Control my weight. Don’t get in tiffs with the wife (they can’t be won, at least in my house). That’s about it. I think I just might be able to make most of these work if I continue to stick to generalities. I’ll try and post another entry after a month to report on my progress.

I think I will set a reminder for it in Outlook.

In the mean time, I wish all of you a very happy new year and I hope that you succeed in sticking to all your resolutions and make it work. But don’t despair if you fail. Remember, it ain’t the destination that matters, it’s the ride. Godspeed.