I don’t do new year’s resolutions. Not in years. I find them worthless. I think it’s the term ‘resolution’ itself that’s a problem. If I’m aiming to do something I’ll set a goal instead and if I want it to actually work I’ll plan out how I’m going to go about achieving it.
Unlike a new year’s resolution most of my goals are not linked to the start of the year. If I decide I need a new goal it can be started anytime and can have any time-line that makes sense.
The biggest exception to this is my book reading goal which I first set several years ago and have reset every year since. It’s an exception because it goes from the beginning of the year and runs to the end. At this stage it’s more of a standing goal than a yearly goal.
All throughout my childhood I loved books. I read as much as I could. Even going so far as to read by torchlight, under the covers of my bed, after my bedtime. I read at least a book a week, usually more. That continued until college when the number of books I read dropped dramatically into single digits.
After college I started working but the number, with a couple of exceptions the number of books I read each year stayed low. In 2009 I read thirteen books. In 2010 I read eleven.
It was then I decided that I needed to read a minimum of twelve books a year. A book a month. A reasonable goal.
The first year I put the goal in place I read forty four books. I considered bumping the goal up to twenty four or fifty two for the following year. From the first year I knew I could manage it. I kept the number at twelve in the end. Mainly because reading is something I enjoy and not something I want to feel under pressure with. I’ve kept the goal the same every year since, hitting a low of sixteen book and a high of sixty three along the way.
Not that the number matters. It’s just a way to remind myself to read when it would be easier to watch tv. Easier doesn’t mean more enjoyable, simply that it provides the path of least resistance.
Goals are guides to help us decide where to focus. They are, at least for me, different than resolutions. Resolutions are just talk. A goal has to be more carefully planned and thought out. It might just be a difference in terminology but I find it means all the difference in how I think about it and therefore go about achieving it.