New Year's Resolutions - a new way of seeing

ew year, new me. We hear it every year, and sometimes we even believe it. That when 31st December clocks over to 1st January, we can make real changes in our lives. We can make ourselves anew, removing the things that drag us down and add things to improve us. The beginning of a new year, along with other milestones such as the start of a school year or semester, a birthday or a major life event such as getting married, a relationship breakdown or the birth of a child really do help us mark, in our minds at least, between the "old me" and the "new me".

So there's evidence to suggest that when making goals about lifestyle change, the start of a new year is as good a time as any to get stuck into it. But we also know from observation or from personal experience, that most New Year's resolutions fail. 

So how can the start of a new year be a good time to set goals but new year's resolutions fail so hard? I would argue that  the nature of resolutions themselves are set to set us up for failure, as well as the way in which many of us think about failure in itself.

Resolutions tend to be vague or focussed on the wrong thing. We either set vague resolutions, such as, "Be nicer to my partner", or we resolve to do something and become discouraged when we fail. When we think about failure not as an end point, but as a step along a journey, we can then reflect on what caused us to fail - what were the internal and external factors in ourselves, our family and our community that impacted on our success, and thinking about the way in which we can change those, or at least our behaviour to those things.

So firstly, I wanted to make sure my resolutions for this year were clear. Which meant throwing the idea of having resolutions in the bin. Instead of resolutions, this year I am having goals. My goals are clear, pass or fail states, but they are also aspirational - I don't expect to succeed at all of these goals all the time, but I do expect to continue to try to achieve them.

All of my goals for the year vary in size. There's little, low effort goals and daily tasks, but there's also big, exciting goals that need a lot of work to get there. That means that even if I don't have the time or space to achieve amazing things, I can achieve little things and get a mental reward for that.

My goals see me as a whole person. Rather than just focussing on my body, or my university studies, or my hobbies, I've tried to set achievable goals across the year that take me in the directions I want to go. I want to be able to manage my priorities so my university study doesn't kick everything else to the kerb as has happened in previous years.

My goals aren't all fun and exciting stuff. Sure, my three big hiking adventures are very exciting, but taking my meds is dull and important, and if I want to be able to go on adventures I need a house that's reasonably tidy to do it from. Doing the dishes isn't sexy by any stretch, but it is self-care.

My goals are taking me towards the person I want to be. They are following my career aspirations through volunteering for the Smith Family and continuing my social work studies, they are following my fitness aspirations through volunteering for my hiking group, as well as the boring self-care stuff.

And that, I think, should be the way we resolve to do anything - I need to assess if a goal takes me towards being the person I want to be.

So without any further ado, here are my goals.

Health and Body

No Alcohol during the week

Walk 2018km over the year

Mental Health

Meditate daily

Take meds everyday

Hiking

Three big hiking adventures - Walhalla, Wilsons Prom Lighthouse, Great Ocean Walk

Create 4 hiking Vlogs

House

Do dishes every night before bed

Ensure all the clean laundry is folded once a week

University

Maintain or increase WAM

Submit one assignment early

Work at implementing the growth mindset

Community

Lead one Hiking Group hike per month

Post one Hiking Group instagram pic per week

Start volunteering as a mentor for school kids with charity

Rolling with the punches

I'm getting ready to go back to university. It’s a big adjustment for me - I'm in my mid thirties, and have a successful career in a large corporation that pays well, that has excellent wages and conditions. I have what I craved throughout my twenties. I have an intellectually stimulating job that provides me with respect, and now I'm going to throw that all away… to go study for many years at a course that will eventually provide me with a career that will be poorly paid and poorly respected.

And it’s the best thing I ever did.

I'm a planner. Its what I do for a living. I plan things. However, the planning I do is often a coping mechanism to control my surroundings, to better cope with my anxiety. And right now, that's something that's increasingly being taken from me. I've rolled the dice and decided I'm going back to university in just over a month.

I just cashed in a week's annual leave at work to buy myself a new computer. There was a big sale on computers that ended yesterday. Normally, I’d fully check out all the options available, dither about it for several months before deciding on an option, well after I initially had the idea. But I don’t have time. I’m working to someone else’s deadlines here. Its terrifying to a certain extent, and from time to time I check in with myself and I’m either impressed with how I’m coping, or dreading the anxiety that hasn’t seemed to hit yet.

Right now, I’m looking at what needs to be done and just doing it. One thing at a time. I need a new computer, do what I need to do to get one. Check.

I need to tidy the study – do what I need to do to tidy up. *gulp* It’s a mess in there.

This is not to say that its all computers and good news. I had a big gaming tournament that was slated for early March. I had elected to take the Friday before the tournament off work, as there are events on the Friday through to the Sunday. I had built a (expensive for me) deck in the relevant format, one that I have never played before. I had made financial decisions for the past four months that would bring me to that tournament.

And it clashes with the only on-campus classes I have all semester.

I’m not going to say I wasn’t disappointed. It was a gutpunch. I’m still very sad about it – all the time and money preparing for the event just seems… wasted now. But I’m taking what I can from it – I’ve gained a lot of knowledge about a format of the game I really had no idea about before. I’m also discussing a possible trip to Sydney for a similar event in July.

So much going on, so many choices… I haven’t even gone into all the machinations to find out if my job will allow me to drop back to part time hours or not. There’s a lot going on – but I’m not over analysing everything and trying to control it – because there’s just so much I can’t even begin to control. Huh. No control, less anxiety. Let me think about that for a while.