Tag Archives: New Year's Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions (Don't) Suck? An Update

Leave a reply

Note: My last post tried something differenet and that one flopped pretty hard, so let’s continue, shall we?

What day is it? The 11th? Shit. I thought we’d be further in the year than we are. It feels like we’re two months into the year with all the bad shit that’s happening in the world. Oh well. Faced with a world seemingly falling apart into chaos all around you, the best thing you can do is to focus on your own well-being and happiness. After all, you can’t change, fix, or alter the world for the better if you yourself can’t seem to survive day-to-day life. Close up within, and focus on yourself.

Speaking of self-help, how are those resolutions going? Are y’all holding on okay? Or did you pick something stupidly silly and unrealistic that you’ve already failed your goals? I’m especially wondering about the gym rats this time of year. How’s the spontaneous gym membership you got on December 29th treating you? I only wonder this because health goals seem especially difficult to maintain, but I do hope everyone is doing fine with their goals.

I’m actually proud with myself and the resolutions I decided upon. I picked them to better myself (in a roundabout way I guess) and at first was fearing the challenges that faced me. But I’ve found my resolutions are snowballing into pure momentum to where they’re becoming actual habits and changes to my life. As time goes on they’re easier to accomplish than when I started. That is more than I realistically hoped for even if it’s what I actually wanted. I picked some great resolutions and I’m proud how much they’re improving my life.

To list them:

  1. Wake up “early” (I’ve decided on 10 a.m.)
  2. Give someone a compliment daily
  3. Read something daily
  4. Write something daily
  5. Drink only on Sunday
  6. 1,000 monthly blog views?
  7. (Self-)Publish two books
  8. Write a Morrowind Fanfic and post on Sunday

Wake Up Early

I want to start with the most basic resolution: wake up early. I had (it feels so nice to write ‘had’ instead of ‘have’) a terrible habit of staying awake until 3, 4, or even 5 a.m. usually scrolling through Reddit/Facebook or watching YouTube videos. Just totally pissing away time. This would cause me to sleep until noon leaving me with a paltry four hours of freetime before work. I didn’t get anything done. My time management was a fucking mess. I don’t even understand how I maintained this blog as well as I did. How was I realizing three productive hours a day out of 24? I woke a part-time job for fucks sake! The plan: wake up early.

Holy shit it’s been working wonders on me. I mean I still fall asleep around 2-4 a.m. but waking up at 10 gives me tons of time to actually be productive. I’ve had so much time, I usually wake up and play video games shamelessly for a few hours; this leaves me with nearly four hours of productive writing/blogging time full of motivation because I had already had my “freetime” playing video games. Sure, I’m only getting six hours of sleep a night but for some reason I feel more energetic and focused. Even at the end of the work day when I’m in a sleepy haze, I still feel happy about feeling that way. I feel like I exist and I don’t have any energy to overworry or feel anxious about things. I just watch people converse, and enjoy listening to them doing so.

I also think a key part of any successful resolution is to be kind to yourself. My daughter was up puking for a few hours last night and I didn’t get to sleep until 5 a.m. I made the conscious decision not to wake up at ten, but it was a logical and conscious decision. Do I feel like I’ve “failed” my resolution? Am I going to give up because I’ve messed up a singular day? No. It’s my resolution and I’ll do whatever I damn well please, even if it means continuing after I’ve “failed.”

Drink Only on Sunday

This one has been going well since the New Year even if it was hard to get into the habit of. It’s currently Saturday, and I hate the weekends. I really want to pound some beers now because I’m so bored and uninspired. But I can wait until tomorrow. I think drinking once a week is optimal for me: it gives me something to “look forward to” during the week and one day isn’t going to ruin my life with alcoholism. It’s the perfect medium and the only challenge is keeping to one day a week. I might be playing with fire here, but it’s working great two weeks into the year (yeah, wow, way to be hero). As with waking up early, my mood is pretty good following my plans.

Another example of “being flexible” or “not being hard on yourself:” I stopped by my mom’s house Wednesday to grab some money she owed me, and she offered me some beers. Her ex-boyfriend two years ago had left six Bud Lights at her house…did I want them? She didn’t drink shitty Bud Lights. Of course I wanted them! I took them and drank the damn things that night. Did I feel like I “failed?” No. I view it as a singular, special, one-time incident and I’m not going to worry about it…back to my plan. This is a little harder to justify as compared to the waking up early example from above, but once again you’re only really justifiable to yourself as long as you don’t abuse that power.

Give Daily Compliments

I’m also proud to say my entire grand plan for daily compliments has worked out perfectly. Everything I envisioned happening to me has happened; my mood is more positive, I look for things to compliment people on, and I’m being more open with giving compliments. Even 11 days into the year I’m more open with compliments than I ever have been. It’s amazing.

The best example so far was when I had my car window repaired. The lady at the service counter had these like inch-long multi-colored fingernails. You guys might realize what type of person I am, but if you can’t, I’m not the type of person to notice or compliment nails at all. I don’t think I’ve ever once consciously noticed fingernails unless they’re ridiculously long/gaudy and impossible to ignore. Anyways, I seen her amazingly fun nails and thought about telling her that I liked them. Ii hesitated for a second or two — was I really going to compliment some stranger’s fingernails? — then I just ran with it and owned the compliment. “I like your nails, they’re really fun,” I said. She smiled, said thanks, and mentioned how she had put them on for New Years and they’re were getting annoying to actually wear. It feels good to spread a little bit of happiness to people. And remember a single compliment is the minimum I need to do; if I want to dish out more compliments, go ahead!

I try not to make “exceptions” for this one because this is opening myself up to failure. Unlike other resolutions, I know if I skip a day or two here I’ll totally lose it. I’m aware I need to really work at this one, and is my most important one to continue.

Other Random Stuff

I have two books I’m working on and there’s no reason I can’t finish them this year. So that’s one. This blog also had about 700 views last month, so once again in the remaining year I should be able to hit 1,000; I just have to remain consistent. I ditched reading and writing everyday because I’m pretty consistent with writing. It’s not an everyday thing, but I’m not slacking as much as I used to. Waking up early has helped immensely with writing. Reading is strange because sometimes I just don’t want to read, and I think I could be putting too much stuff on my plate with that.

The other notable resolution is my promise to write a Morrowind Fanfiction story and post a new chapter on Wattpad every Sunday. I laid out my plan over on my other blog so check it out if you’re curious.

I know 11 days doesn’t really mean much in terms of yearly resolutions, but I’m feeling really good about mine. They’re already improving my life and I know the longer I keep them up the greater the effects will be. And if you have fucked up on your resolutions a few time? Who cares! Just get back on the wagon and back to them. You don’t have to admit defeat and you don’t have to quit because of a single fuck up. Remember, the only one you need to justify your actions to is yourself, and if you have a good reason for breaking a resolution, don’t be too hard on yourself. 2020 might suck so far, but let’s get those positive vibes out there and have a good year.

New Year's Resolutions (Don't) Suck?

4 Replies

Note: I don’t want to write. I don’t want to post. I don’t want to think about the optimal time to schedule a post. But I have to: this post has a dictated timeframe with it being about the goddamn New Year. I simply don’t have a choice. So time to buckle down and force something out against my will. This is the struggle of blogging.

I’ve never been a fan of making New Year’s Resolution (as you can read here) but I recently watched a YouTube video by Veritasium that has somehow gotten me totally hyped for the New Year. (I’ll link it below if I can figure out how to do so. You know, learning WordPress and all…) Like I’ve bought into all the bullshit about it for some reason. Maybe it’s because I’ve felt like the past year or two has been an incomprehensible blur and I want a firm date to change my mindset and make small but perceptible changes to my self and my life? I don’t know. At this point I’m not trying to question my random positive mood here. I’m running with it as is because it is a rare and uplifting thing for me to do.

HOLY SHIT LINKING TO A VIDEO WORKED! ON POST 101 I’VE LEVELED UP!

If you didn’t watch the video, Derek explains a few key takeaway points about resolutions:

  1. New Year’s is the best time to set out to do something
  2. Despite #1 most resolutions fail because of the following three reasons:
  3. Resolutions need to be small and not too big or dramatic
  4. They need to be measurable and clear. Vague resolutions will almost always fail
  5. They mustn’t require a ton of willpower

When you’re given these restraints you instantly see the idea of resolutions as better than the popular pipe-dreams you typically hear spouted off. Instead of criticizing people for picking random and unachievable stuff like “be a better person” or “lose weight” you start to realize that maybe by picking smaller and easier to achieve things you might actually be able to fundamentally change yourself in the 365 366 days that are 2020 (2020 is a leap year?! Hello February 29th!). Given these restraints you might start to feel emboldened: maybe New Year’s Resolutions are a good way to start your journey throughout the New Year?

As for my actual resolutions, I’m leaning towards something like giving a single compliment to someone every day. It’s not dramatic, it’s measurable, and achievable but at the same time me going out of my mostly negative and reclusive shell to actually dish out compliments might do me good in the long run. Like Derek said, it’s the idea behind improving 1% a day which leads to massive improvements over time. Now that I think of this more, it does seem pretty adventurous too; what do I do on weekends when I’m only around family? Do I make a pact to only compliment strangers because complimenting family is too easy? Where I’ll have to compliment the denizens that inhabit Walmart or the local derelict gas station? There are some details to work out here for sure because I see some easy ways out for my future self. But I think it’s a good start.

Another possible idea I’ve discovered scouring Veritasium’s YouTube page (he mentioned putting resolutions in the comments) was to wake up early every day. I have a nasty habit of waking up at 12 p.m. after pissing away hours in bed looking a Reddit between 12-3 a.m. so this might help my mood, writing, blogging, productivity, etc. Other random and possible ideas I might settle on are reading something everyday, writing something everyday, and only drinking on Sunday. They are mostly small, easy to enact, and measurable (if I clear up the general “something” that is) so should be accomplishable, but as stated I still have two days to flesh out my ideas into something more concrete. Let me know what your resolutions are below so I might be able to steal them if they’re good enough.

New Year’s Resolutions suck. But this year I’m finding myself embracing them.

Closing Note: I’ve also had this terrible idea to make shirts hating on the New Year.