Seven surefire suggestions for New Year’s resolutions that won’t live past the New Year’s hangover.
1. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing
Whether it’s a question of excessive degree or excessive dispatch, you can ensure your failure by overdoing it. Go too far or too fast.
There’s a marathon in August? Nevermind that you just had knee surgery and actually have the runs more often than you have a run. Plan on that 26.2-mile race, and you, like Phidippides, can die from exhaustion. (You know, the guy who ran from the battle of Thermopylae, shouted “Nike,” and fell dead.)
St. Valentine’s Day is coming, and you need to drop weight? Start hard and fast, rather than working your way up from an sustainable regimen. Work out an hour per day, seven days per week, and cut dairy, alcohol, and sugar from your diet.
2. Plans of action are for chumps
Whatever it is you’re planning to do, don’t plan out the steps to take you there. Just start moving in whatever direction and at whatever pace you please. Remember: unplanned action + unreasonable expectation = the audacity of hope.
Take an example: for a goal hiking several hundred miles through Europe, just go for a walk each day and tell yourself you could probably go 20 miles at a stretch if you really wanted to.
3. Keep it vague
Few things can be achieved that cannot also be measured, so don’t assign a threshold of success to your resolution. I promise that the new you will be every bit as insipid and lugubrious as the old you.
For instance, make your goal “to lose weight,” not “to drop 50 lbs.” or “to fit into those old jeans in my closet.” Also, stay out of my closet.
4. A resolution that depends on another’s decisions
If it is to be, it is up to… someone else. And unless that person is as reliable as the daily post, you’ll likely be high and dry a year from now.
You want to get married this year? This goal is a perfect loser because it hinges on the contingency that someone of your affection make a decision that coincides with your own. Yes, you could get a mail-order bride from the Philippines, but I don’t think that people actually set a goal for doing that kind of thing.
You plan on a 10% raise this year? This is really as much your boss’ decision as it is yours. Yes, you might put in the work to find a new job that pays 10% more, but looking for work is itself a full-time job for most of us.
5. Keep it secret
One of the surest means for sticking to a goal is community support, so keep quiet about your New Year’s resolution. After all, if your family suspects that you want to quit smoking, they’re almost certain to interfere when you reach for the first smoke of the annus novus.
Alternative to keeping mum about your resolution, you might disseminate misinformation about it: “My goal is to develop lung cancer this year.”
6. Make the resolution whilst inebriated
Anyone who’s ever proposed marriage while drunk can attest the difficulty of abiding by a commitment made under such circumstances. My advice—(well, this is actually Angela’s advice)—is to wait until the New Year’s party, imbibe some spirits, and let the alcohol take over your resolution planning.
“Thish iS the laast drop of alcohol thAt shall pasS these lipsh!” A surefire failure.
7. Never do today what you can put off til tomorrow
Is your resolution something that can’t begun until midway through the year? Some people would tell you that it’s probably not a good “New Year’s” resolution, then, but we know better.
“This year I’m going to learn to water ski barefoot.” Chances are that by the time summer rolls around, you’ll have lost the fire you had on New Year’s Day, and you’ll have generated no momentum in the meanwhile. Maybe you’ll forget by year’s end, and you can make it next year’s resolution as well.
