On New Year's Resolutions

The Year is already a couple of days old by now and I still keep getting bombarded with New Year's Resolutions left and right. Though I find some people's resolutions rather interesting to know, I'm not a big fan of them. I've never made any actually. I have goals, all right, but they tend to kind of evolve rather naturally all year round and I adjust them once I see how things are going. Because with most goals you tend to under- or overestimate the difficulties you'll be facing. There are always things you just can't foresee and you need your goals to be flexible enough to take that into consideration.

That's also one of the reasons I don't like telling people about my goals at first. It puts you in that all or nothing mindset, because they'll hold you to what you said.  So that instead of being proud of the progress you have made towards your goal, you'll feel like you failed and give up all together. And then there's also some evidence that suggests that for people who are in it for the social appraisal - or whatever you want to call it – the declaration of the goal and the ensuing admiration from other people are satisfying enough and they might not even bother to get started. Like displaying pretentious books that you never intend to read on your shelves. I don't know, if I ever done something of that kind. I don't think so, but my adolescent self was kind … well, I don't get what she was thinking most of the time. And people tell me things that I can hardly believe. So I wouldn't entirely rule it out. It's like I've been possessed for a really long time. Evil spirit be gone.

However, I didn't achieve everything I wanted to before the New Year, but I don't see that as a failure. It's not like I haven't achieved anything. It just means that it's an ongoing process. And considering the circumstances, I'm actually quite satisfied with what I've managed to accomplish last year.