The time for making New Year’s Resolutions is upon us. For me, this is the time of year when Those Someday Goals and New Year’s Resolutions collide. And while I know we have (essentially) a month from putting the resolutions into action, that time is going to fly. It’s time to start making a plan.
The History
More than fifteen years ago, my friends and I started focusing on resolutions as a way of setting goals and our intentions for the new year. The process took on an almost magical quality when outrageously specific resolutions came to be. How outrageous? One of mine was “Get my first SAG job playing an FBI agent on the series finale of The X-Files.” Yep. It happened (or, at least, it was meant to be the series finale when I did it. Wink). For my friends, similar events occurred, and we became, at least somewhat, convinced that when we got together and said our resolutions out loud (or emailed them to one another) that they would come true. At one point, we even wrote our resolutions down and put them into the “Wish” ornament for safe-keeping (pictured above). Do I think we were actually magic? No, but there is something about the accountability of sharing the resolutions that worked for us.
Setting My Resolutions
My resolutions always flow through categories. I have health goals, organization goals, writing goals, financial goals and travel goals. Obviously, a number of these overlap. For instance, if I could sell some projects at the beginning of the year, I’ll meet my writing, financial and travel goals in one go. While getting my health back on track isn’t entirely up to me, treatments have an impact on every other aspect of my life. So, health resolutions along the lines of “stay alive” and “rebuild muscle” are going to be at the top of both my Someday Goals and New Year’s Resolutions.
Much in the same way that sharing my resolutions with friends helped me stay accountable and on track, I think sharing those goals with you may help me in the same way. It’s not a guarantee, but I think it is worth setting my intentions for the year.
How about you? Do you already know what your New Year’s Resolutions will be? What’s your top one? Feel free to share in the comments, and good luck!
I posted my resolution on social media. I think sharing is helpful but we must know which goals should we share or not. Overall, Its helpful.
It’s a good point. Did you get a lot of people sharing their goals with you?
Some people. Most probably those who want to show something about themselves.