Deciding on what New Year Resolutions to set myself could affect the next year of my life. Especially if I am actually going to fulfil my pledges. So choosing the right ones for me is important. I have no idea why people choose to do things such as “Do not each meat for a year” or “Do not drink for a year”. Eating meat and drinking beer, especially together, creates too good a feeling to deny. If that is to lose weight, then fair enough, but my resolutions need still need to make me happy. I should not have to compromise anything, otherwise the activity is worthless - what is the point of generating happiness through reaching a goal if you have to sacrifice something just as valuable?
So I need to chose things that will challenge me but at the same time not things that will disrupt my life and cause grievances. I want to carry on doing the activities that I do such as play football, play guitar, see family and friends, write music reviews etc. but use the less productive time… doing something more productive! Chilling with a beer whilst playing Fifa and listening to music is not a process I envisage altering although I am aware that my priorities may change if I have bigger fish to fry. Of course the challenges cannot be too vague. Saying that you want to get stronger, or read more, or save more, is too ambiguous. If I did 20 press-ups everyday for just one week, the strength in my arms would increase, but only by an insignificantly small amount. A target needs to be measurable. To say that I will do 20 press-ups everyday of the year is measurable because you will know if you have achieved it or not (this is not one of my targets by the way. There is less of a need to try and impress others when you are married.) I want to choose promises that I will be proud of, I want have accomplishments this year, not related to work, and I want to be challenged. Another limitation is money. My wife is training to do a P.G.C.E to become a Primary teacher, and so there is currently only one salary paying for the mortgage. So ideally these targets should cost me very little indeed, which rules out joining a gym (yes!).
I also am ruling out the possibility of adding or altering New Year Resolutions throughout the year because that will only work against me. This will prevent me from changing my target if it becomes too difficult. I know that people can achieve without setting targets. I managed last year to get married, get a small promotion at school and catch up with Game of Thrones, and that was without trying. I want to find out just how realistic it is to set ambitious targets, and reach them.
After spending yesterday and today thinking about them, and after receiving suggestions from friends, this is what I have come up with. Twelve challenges, one for each month, to be completed in any order, and to be documented so you can join me in my glories or laugh at my failures.
1. Write a book. This could be a short story, a novel, or a factual book.
2. Run a 10km race. For an extremely fit person this would probably be easy. I am not one of those people.
3. Do at least 20 hours of some volunteering/charity work. I am hoping that it will be much more than this but I really have no idea how much time I am going to have.
4. Record an album. I’ll definitely do it this year!
5. Learn a language. See what I mean by time consuming?
6. The Three Peaks Challenge, which is climbing the three highest peaks in England, Wales and Scotland, in 24 hours. My friend, Mike, managed it a couple of years ago, so I’ve just asked him to see if he fancied doing it again.
7. Raise at least £1,000 for charity. I’m hoping Objectives 2,3 and 6 will take care of this but if not, I’ll have to think of some other way!
8. Knit a jumper in time for next Christmas. Thanks Adele. My wife gave me this challenge after I was moaning about how shops have the cheek to charge £40 for a jumper that anyone could knit one themselves for a fiver. Me and my stupid, stupid mouth.
9. Go to, on average, one museum a month. I also want to visit, on average, one gig a month but because this has a greater chance of costing more money, this is not an official target.
11. Introduce tea/coffee to my life and regularly eat at least 3 fruits (I basically only eat apples and this is when forced by society). For those of your who know me, you will understand just how difficult this will be for me. I hate fruit and tea/coffee and although this will not make me happy in the short term, it will help be in the long term when people start treating me like a real person.
12. Clear out my garage. OK, it is not a noble promise, but it really is a mess.
I must admit that when I told my wife of my plans she gave me the rather expected, yet honest response,
“Matt, you often say that you are going to do things and don’t. What about the album you were going to record last? And how do you think you are going to manage all these things if, in a couple of months, you have sixty reports to write for school? There may be such a thing as too ambitious!”
Whether she wanted to or not, bless her, that was exactly the push I needed.
I just received a text message. Mike just said yes!
No comments:
Post a Comment