No, I Don't Have New Year's Resolutions.

JLF asked me late last year (just now cleaning out my personal inbox), "Do you have any new year's resolutions?"

In a word, "No."

In a long-winded, likely disorganized post, no, I don't have new year's resolutions.

I used to make new year's resolutions. "This year is going to be different!" I'd say, "This year I am going to be exactly the person I want to be!" I'd say. "This year, I'm doing to do these 20 things differently!" I'd say.

I was delusional. My resolutions lasted as long as other people's resolutions, which is to say, maybe a week? Two weeks? Three if I REALLY wanted to do a particular thing I had resolved to do.

I'd do this year after year. Same behaviour. Same failure.

About 8 years ago or so, I came across my stash of previous years' new year's resolutions, along with the Ben-Lisa-Kris-Kitt lists of yearly predictions, and realized my list was the same every year. What is the point of having the same resolutions year after year, starting on some arbitrary date? What is the point of saying, I SHALL CHANGE, then never do it?

So, I stopped making new year's resolutions.

And resolutions in general.

Over the subsequent few years, I've shifted away from resolutions to goals. Things I want to accomplish. Things I want to do, to experience, to change.

I've shifted away from GIANT CHANGES to incremental changes. I don't need to (and, in reality, usually can't) make huge changes to improve my life. Small ones, however, made consistently, can be HUGE over time.

I've shifted away from starting at some date in the future to starting now. Harry's "... when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible" doesn't work just for epic declarations of love, it works for every change you want to make.

I've shifted away from relying on will-power to developing habits. Will power goes only so far, habits will carry you forever on inertia alone.

So, I no, I have no new year's resolutions. Instead, I have a lifetime of change.