Irresolutely Yours

Or, My Take on New Year Resolutions.

I don't do them.   

Ok, that's not entirely true.  Years ago, I would occasionally throw out the random "wouldn't it be nice if I did this during the next year," and then I'd promptly forget about it a few days later.  But eventually I gave that up (it was pretty useless anyway), and for many years, I refused to even consider resolving anything for the coming year.  Apparently I thought I was perfect and didn't need to improve on anything.  (Obviously not true.)  Or I was too lazy to mess with it.  (Probably closer to the truth.)  Over the last few years or so, though, I've actually had the same goal, and for various reasons, this year I think I managed to accomplish that goal.  No, it wasn't anything discrete or easily measured (lose X pounds, get rid of Y things that clutter my life, etc.).  It was a lot fuzzier than that, which could make you wonder if you've really accomplished anything at all...but it's my goal, and I say it's accomplished.  So it is.  Which is great, and actually a bit of a surprise, but now I'm left wondering whether I should put a few more goals in place for myself, despite my general lack of self discipline.

I've mentioned before that I'm not great on self discipline these days, and I feel like a nice, discrete goal (run a marathon in 2011, read X number of books, quit drinking caffeine, whatever) would just be a setup for failure.  My life is too fluid and unpredictable most of the time to allow for a lot of scheduling, and I don't really have the drive to set anything like that in front of me right now.  Plus, I find that my interests wax and wane over long periods of time - for example, sometimes I'll go through phases where I read 10 books in a month, and then not another book for several months.  My level of enjoyment of the activity depends on the level of interest I have - if there's a feeling of "I should" rather than "I want," it most likely won't end well.  Wait, isn't the definition of self discipline something along the lines of making yourself do the things you don't want to do?  Hmm, and didn't I say something about lacking self discipline above?  

I guess I feel like I need to know what my motivation is before I can transfer something from an "I should" to an "I want."  And that involves more big picture thinking than a discrete resolution sometimes requires.  I guess maybe I'm thinking that if you set a broader goal, some of the smaller things should (will?) take care of themselves.  Maybe that's more of a shotgun approach as opposed to a sharpshooter approach, but it makes more sense to me.  It's also completely counter to what you are supposed to do with goals (break them down into manageable chunks with smaller milestones), but if your broader mindset is where it needs to be, the details should take care of themselves, right?

I know there is certainly room for improvement in my life.  Perhaps some folks would say significant room...but that would be a totally different post.  So while I'm not exactly setting a resolution this year, I do have something I want to focus on, a new goal if you want to call it that.  And, like the last one, it's pretty fuzzy, so I'm not sure how you give it a beginning or an end.  But maybe it's enough to acknowledge it and remind myself of it every now and then, and hope that it will begin to influence my decisions on a regular basis.  I'm good with baby steps here; sometimes the painfully slow, almost unnoticeable changes are the ones that result in the largest, most satisfying results over time. 

So here's the theme for the upcoming year (or however long it takes for me to be satisfied with it):  raising the bar.  Raising my expectations of what I expect out of myself.  I've mentioned before that I feel like I've been sort of lazy for a while - not in the "sit on the couch all day" way - that typically doesn't happen unless I've overindulged a bit the night before.  More in the "I could do a better job at X, but I'm too lazy" kind of way.  We only go around once, and as I get older, that idea comes to my mind a little more often than it used to.  Why not kick some ass and accomplish a few things this time around - assuming I can pull myself out of the The Lazy.  So there you go.  That is the theme or goal or - ok, if you must - resolution for the foreseeable future.  We'll see how it goes...