A Year of Resolutions

I don't normally do New Year resolutions because I don't think they work and they get quickly discarded. This year I've decided to give it a try but I want to find a way to solve some of the known issues.

First, I'm not going to the gym in January; the gym just gets too crowded because a ton of people decide to begin exercising on Jan 1st. I've decided if I was going to do a fitness resolution it won't start on Jan 1st and that's what got me thinking that instead of doing a bunch of resolutions on Jan 1st and throwing them all away by Feb 1st that I'll do one resolution per month.

I'm going to make a list of 12 things that I want to accomplish in 2014 and each thing it going to have a month dedicated to it without distraction. If something takes longer than a month, like a diet, then I'm going to commit to it for one month and then reevaluate. I find it much easier to make a month-long commitment than a year long one and I feel worse about breaking a commitment than never making one in the first place.

Another advantage of spreading out the goals is that some goals are best suited for months that are not January (e.g. learning to surf).

The plan is to write the goal on a post-it note at the beginning of the month and place it on my bedroom wall. At the end of the month I will write 'accomplished' or 'failed' and hope by the end of the year to have wall full of 12 post-it notes saying accomplished.