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Posts Tagged ‘New Year resolutions’

My resolutions, if they exist, generally revolve around 1) getting better at certain activities, such as piano, Wing Chun, and basketball, or 2) developing certain habits, like meditating and journaling daily.

On getting better, the challenge is to 1) set up a routine for regular practice, and 2) be conscientious enough to focus on areas that’d help me improve. The latter is more difficult, as activities that’d likely help me improve most tend to be the less exciting drills, self tests, and evaluations that are not well-defined and require mental efforts.

I would also like to set a regular time to review things. Without reviews, I forget many things, including experience, books I read, or movies I saw. I hope this blog can help me to be more reflective of life events and media consumed, and be more organized with my photos, videos, and drawings. This in turn might help me remember the more important things in life.

Matthew Mcconaughey kept a diary for 35 years, and this is what he said when he reviewed them to write his memoir: “I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would. I laughed, I cried, I realized I had remembered more than I expected, and forgot less.” I’m not sure my memory would be as good as his, but I think my future self would love to read my real time feelings and thoughts.

Most people don’t stick to their resolutions beyond February, and I’ve failed many times (e.g. regular review has been a challenge). But life is a journey. If I fail, I can be more like Calvin and be content with myself.

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New Year resolutions usually don’t last, and most people return to life as usual by February. This is not as depressing as it sounds. End-year provides a good opportunity to reflect and New Year resolution is more a by-product of the changes we want to make. The best way to make changes is to alter our habits, and developing/changing habits can start anytime. So if things don’t work out in January, maybe try again in February in different ways.  I find it easier to change thing one at a time than all at once, so it makes more sense to space out changes we want to make throughout the year.

I don’t have many ambitious goals this year (to achieve anything significant would likely require more than a year anyway). If I can form a few good habits sometime during the year, I’d be happy.

Below is a video summary of Charles Duhigg’s book on habit, and Alex Tabarrok’s review here.

More on New Year resolutions and the time it takes to form habits.

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