New Year's Resolutions

Another new year is upon us, and with it comes the age-old tradition of making resolutions and sweating on a stack of bibles this will be the year of change! And along with those annual bursts of epiphanies come the other age-old tradition . . . breaking the goals we set for ourselves in that moment of enlightenment.

Often New Year’s resolutions are mentioned in the same breath as the words “stupid,” “waste of time,” and “BS.” Not to mention discussions of resolutions also carry comment tails of “I make ‘em, I break ‘em, so why do ‘em;” “they are too hard;” and “I am too involved in life to keep at them.”

Well, yeah. Look at how the average person goes about making their resolutions: “I want to be rich,” “I want to lose weight,” or “I want to spend more time with family.” When you look at them in those terms why not those in “Bring about world peace” and “save the whales?” How different are those to achieve than say, “I want to lose weight?” It sounds crazy, but these are not realistic without some sort of focus. What we too often do is provide ourselves a vision to aspire to and not a realistic goal we could ever hope to achieve. And the only one who achieves anything is the local fitness center around this time of year.

Why do resolutions? Hey, it’s tradition! But more importantly, this annual exercise of self-reflection provides a spark of hope, and this is not a bad thing. It’s this spark that helps set direction for the future and motivates many of us to wake up in the morning. So, why not fuel this spark into a fire of comfort and direction for our lives?

Here’s the first New Year’s resolution: Make your resolution realistic and obtainable. To do this doesn’t mean a laundry list of low hanging fruit, such as go to work, feed the dog & kids, etc. Lets take a look at our ambiguous list we noted above and pick “Save the whales.” We now make this a goal for 2010. Next we set objectives that will feed into our goal. Remember the “baby steps” from the movie “What about Bob?” For the purposes of this exercise lets list our objectives as: 1) Contribute $20 each month to a ‘Save the Whales’ foundation, 2) Take the family to Monterey Bay each fall for the running of the whales, and 3) Write one of your congressional representatives once every three months to support ‘Save the Whales’ legislation. Are these realistic and obtainable, or maybe with a few adjustments can they be doable within the constraints of your lifestyle or situation?

As you can see, resolutions can be doable if YOU allow it to happen. This maybe a silly tradition, but it also offers hope. So, don’t extinguish the spark – carry on the tradition.

So, what does my resolutions for 2010 look like? Actually, I only have one – To save the world, one starfish at a time.