It has become commonly accepted that the tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions is an exercise doomed to fail, usually due to over-ambition when creating resolutions. That makes a lot of sense, and as a result I have historically felt very cozy staying in my life-long habit of making precisely zero New Year’s resolutions. That was, until I read a blog post (which I have lost the link to, due to my old phone dying (rest in peace Samsung Galaxy S7 from 2016)) suggesting that instead of creating a typical resolution, we do something else. Unfortunately, due to the previously mentioned death of my phone, where I was storing the note about this blog post idea until this New Year, I don’t fully remember what that thing was.
After a half-hearted search of Hacker News for the term “new year”, I triumphantly failed to find any blog posts that I recognized. Honestly, I was on the brink of giving up and sliding back into my cozy habit of having no New Year’s Resolutions (as you can tell by this article being a week late), when it struck me that I shouldn’t give up so easily, an also that it doesn’t really matter if I remember everything I wanted to write for this post; it’s all just a paper trail for me anyway. So, I’ve decided that in place of a New Year’s Resolution, I will create a short list of habits I already possess that I either want to maintain, expand, or reign in. Mostly things tied to who I am, what I want to become, and what makes me happy.
This idea bears some resemblance to New Year’s Resolutions, although I hope that by keeping the list small and focusing on habits I have strong feelings about, I will be able to stay motivated. It may also be interesting or helpful to look back on this list in the future to see what I cared about, check my progress on these goals, and adjust accordingly.
This was a goal I created for myself a while ago actually, and lead me to move with my partner to Seattle. Being physically closer to more people I love feels like it has made a huge difference in my overall happiness level over the ~5 months since I’ve moved. I want to continue making plans to, and aimlessly/spontaneously, spend time with all my friends. I think as a stretch goal, it would be nice to try to spend some time with smaller groups of them to get to know them better as individuals.
I’ve been struggling on and off with YouTube bingeing since the start of the pandemic. Being stuck at home alone while I work remotely has not been great for my ability to focus. I would love to have an office to go to one day (as long as the commute is not nauseatingly long). Until such a time, I’ve resorted to using an app to block youtube.com on my phone and will stop watching YouTube videos during lunch, since that has started to dig into my work time.
It becomes easy to just live along-side someone, but I want more than a roommate relationship with my partner. I will spend the effort to schedule dates more often, and have more thoughtful (i.e. talking while eating dinner instead of being on our phones) daily interactions.
Side projects are a lot of fun, and I usually learn a lot from making them. I find myself frequently making excuses to myself that I’m too busy or don’t have enough time to work on my side projects. Deep down, I think this is a momentum problem (it’s hard to get started, but easy to keep going), so I’d like to schedule some specific times during each week to dedicate to side project work.
I have recently been having a lot of trouble sleeping, and I suspect this is the culprit behind my other new issue with anxiety. I’m going to start getting ready for bed even earlier and ask for help from my partner to peer pressure me to sleep earlier.
I’ve been exercising kinda regularly, and I’d like to keep it up. Moving around a little every day keeps me sane, and I need to stay in shape for Ultimate Frisbee, and other running activities.
This is a late addition based on a conversation with my parents over the holidays. As my brother and I have grown up, we’ve lost many of my family’s traditions due to the circumstances of being at college and living apart. Things that tied us together like family dinner, classic movie nights, summer vacations are either don’t make sense anymore, or are harder to do regularly. Traditions give us all something to celebrate, to look forward to, and provide structure to the calendar. It’s something I didn’t realize I valued until it started to disappear. I’d like to create family traditions that fit with our adult lives so I can stay close with my family. I’d also like to create new traditions with my partner, since we don’t have many traditions yet.