NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS – an A for effort

Making New Year resolutions takes a bit of time, while breaking them, is a piece of cake – that seems to be the universal pattern. For most of us, our proverbial mantra is: January first, my life shall change forever – or longer. And then we create this long list of how we can and will improve and change; we can at least give that part an A for effort; but then what?

New Year Resolutions are as old as the beginning of Homo sapiens (as in early man, woman, child, small dogs and cute bunnies named Fluffy). Though I wasn’t around at the time, I can only trust that we have always had this urge to do better, keep moving forward and improve ourselves. That’s why we have sliced bread, smart-phones and flushing toilets. For the most part we let other Homo sapiens do the heavy lifting, though most of us ‘normal’ sapiens are involved in that process constantly, one way or another. But one thing we all do before the start of a new year, is getting a list together concerning how we would like to improve our own lives, make things better and enhance the world around us the next twelve months; and that is so cool - don’t you think?

Options are that we can either announce our resolutions to everybody, which is pathetically stupid; does accountability ring a bell? Or we can write them on a secret piece of paper, carve them in stone as Moses did or simply keep them stored between our ears, risk-free. Whatever choice, we all participate on some level; yes, even you, sitting there rolling your eyes and shaking your head.

Resolutions (the act of solving or determine) are made to improve ourselves, and that is where it all starts. The better we feel about ourselves, the better we get along with the people around us. Feeling good about ourselves first, makes the proverbial ball roll in the right direction.

The New Year Resolution is the Mother of All Resolutions. It’s where we aim big, and way big for the most part: I will lose 164 pounds (and I need to), build a 2 story summer-residence using only home-baked bricks, learn six Chinese dialects and find the true cure for hiccups. Even extreme effort will not help you with that list, but I’ll still respect you for trying; the proverbial ‘effort’ thing – really.

Hiding under the skirts of the Mother of All Resolutions we should perhaps set lesser goals, lower the bar (hem?) to reach success; I can swing with that. So instead of just one huge unattainable “gee, I-really-want-to” challenge, why don’t we just split this resolution thing up in 365 equal parts (that’s pretty much one mini resolution every day for a year, huh?) It all adds up…

You might want to make the legendary beauty pageant wish: PEACE ON EARTH your main focus. This wish is always expressed with the naïve hope that it might actually happen (yeah, and good luck with that); they make it sound like a Piece of Cake to achieve Peace on Earth. But a solution to this is actually right in front of us. Peace on Earth starts with you and me. When we have peace within ourselves, it will spread to our spouses, children, family, bunnies named Fluffy, neighbors, the tax-collector and then one day we finally achieve true PEACE ON EARTH – it could happen; at least we should do our best to make it happen; are you with me on that? Mini resolutions is the answer.

Give yourself a few minutes in the morning to make sure that you plan something to improve your day, to improve yourself and build a bit more foundation for your future, your happiness, whatever it is you are seeking (as long as it doesn't involve action by the judicial system or the police). In the evening you take a few minutes to go over what you did that day and especially how it made you feel. Daily resolutions are the way to succeed as you reach immediate goals that will satisfy you instantly; Piece of Cake, really. Now go do it…

Last year I called my resolutions: The Ten Demmandments of Peter. No, gentle reader this is personal stuff, so there. But I did do an addendum: BE HAPPIER & BE NICER. That is not to say that I’m not happy or that I’m a crappy person to be around, it’s just a reminder that no matter how happy or how nice I am, I can always do better – we can ALL do better; plenty of room to improve.

New Year Resolutions are great, they really are. The reason is that we have at least acknowledged and therefor determined that we want to improve, whatever that improvement involves. We are telling ourselves that we can actually do better and that admission in itself is golden; makes you feel good, fluffy and giggly inside, doesn’t it?

Some resolutions die fast: ‘Cut down on alcohol intake, less swearing and don’t eat so much’, normally falter around 4:30 pm January 1 - in my case; but I still get an A for effort. Okay a bit extreme, as it is not totally true. We should learn to set goals we can and want to reach, and by applying a constant extra effort, it soon becomes no effort at all – and we are on our way to success. The more we work towards our goals and successes, the easier it gets.  By December 31, 365 days later, we realize that we did improve our lives, we did move forward. If that was just a few small steps or that 164 pounds of weight loss we aimed at (and good luck with that), whatever size of improvement, we are adding up the successes and are of course encouraged to do it again – next January first.

Peace on Earth would be heaven, really; the cure for cancer likewise and the list is long. To make it all happen, consider how important those New Year Resolutions you make for yourself are for the world around you. When we all do our share, who knows what will happen? And don’t fret about not living up to all your resolutions, remember instead that you did try your best and that in itself is a huge A for effort, it seriously is.