User blog:Taldin/Making the New Year Different

The New Year is when we make a lot of resolutions -- things to make our lives better than the year before. Usually the grocery list includes 'exercise more', 'eat better', 'be more frugal', 'quit smoking', those sort of things. The popular stuff. The stuff everyone wants to do because they hear from others that they should do.

But that's our self-conscious brain talking. It's the way that we feel (or know) that others see us; for example, 'lose weight' is not in the list above, because I don't need to, so it's not lurking in my subconscious, dredged to the surface at the beginning of a year by my self-conscious mind grasping for ideas of what I should be doing better.

I think what we really want to have on our Resolutions are concrete things: goals. Goals that are feasible. Goals that are achieveable - there's a saying I'm fond of, any goal that you don't have a plan for is a dream or a fantasy. So there's rule number one:

''If you can't make a plan, don't add it to your list. ''

Next is figuring out why we want to do such things. Do we do them because we're ashamed of who we were last year,and we feel obligated to do them by an outside force, saying we ought to quit smoking (by the way, I don't smoke, but people in my life do) or because we truly believe that it is something that will enrich us personally somehow?

We are motivated by many things, but guilt is negative and hope is positive. Those things that are driven by guilt to change are things that we have a tendency to fall back on in our moments of weakess or inattention; those things that motivate us to hope to be or achieve give us joy when we attain them. We should have at least some of each, because a list populated by our guilty conscience is a list of failures and setbacks waiting to happen; a list that has dreams and fantasies that we intend to make happen gives us positive memories when we get there. While it's true we can land in a place of disappointment if we don't make our dreams happen, think about how many -decades- the Cubs were dreaming of a World Series victory, and realize that saying 'there's always next year' is an acceptable rationalization. And sometimes, the stars align just right for amazing things to happen - shouldn't we all be open to making the things we want to happen, rather than accepting what miracles fall in our lap? That's rule number two in a nutshell:

''If you know what you want in life, but don't know how to get there, figure out how to make step one happen this year. Preferrably two and three, too.''

All plans require effort on our part - there's the old parable about hoping to win the lottery, but never buying a ticket. Many things we need or want in life require effort; some of them require sacrifice, or choosing one thing over another, or giving up something we relied upon in the past, but the key here is that plans with goals require you to change. Recognizing that if you do nothing, you won't go anywhere unless someone else moves you - and how many people in your life have your best interests in mind? Most of the time someone who tries to get you to change is trying to get you to change something for their benefit (although we ought to have some people in our lives who want to help us to be better people, sometimes they don't get why we are the way we are...) rather than what works best for you. And that's not you making the change, that's them pushing you. Show of hands; how many of us disagreed with something our parents insisted would be good for us? (-raises a hand-)  Were you right?

The thing to understand here is that inertia of the self is something that keeps us where the least amount of energy is required. It's easy to do nothing unless the world forces you to change; it's hard to do something because deciding what to do in the first place is effort, figuring out how is effort, and then making it happen is even more effort on top of that.

Some of us only do the things that are easy; others pick things that are improbable and then give up before we get there, discouraged at the lack of progress or the first major setback - but in reality, it just means we need to try again, try harder, and adjust for what stopped us this time. That, I think, is why we all make New Years Resolutions; because we're willing to get up and try again this year, even if we didn't make it last year.

And that's the third rule right there:

Do not do things because they are easy; do them because they make you happy, better, or both.

That is what Habitica has been for me - a reminder that little things done in small steps can be life-changing just as much. I have a really innocuous Daily that comes up every few days - Add a To Do. Whenever that one pops up, I'll add something that needs to be done sometimes, or something I want to do, but every time I do that I add a resolution for the day or week, rather than 'sometime this year'. And so I'm always looking forward, and past failures fall further and further behind me with each passing day.

What's on my list for New Year's Resolutions? Well, this just checked off the first one:

Share more wisdom.

The rest is a work in progress. Hey, I've got all year to figure it out!

Taldin (talk) 20:55, January 1, 2017 (UTC)