Don't tell me your resolutions, please...

I don't do New Year's resolutions. Never really have and I am not about to start now. Don't get me wrong - in the past I have had a vague thought somewhere around midnight on several 31sts of December that in the coming 12 months I might stop smoking/drink less/exercise more/learn to meditate etc. etc. The reality, however, is always the same: I was smoking again by the second week of January, exercise and meditation remained stubbornly unticked in the 'To Do' section of the diary received as a Christmas present and as for drinking less, well somebody has to deal with that EU wine lake for heaven's sake!

So, at the start of a new year with all the possibilities that such a blank canvas provides, we too often set ourselves up with a big stick to beat ourselves with. By taking on resolutions that are full of good intention but without the will or strategy to see them through to completion, we are heading towards a big, fat downer when the failure happens. We can then beat ourselves up about it, promise to better next year and start the whole sorry cycle again. Why inflict this on ourselves? I have found that most often, change happens in ways that are nothing to do with resolutions: I quit smoking because I started to smoke fewer and fewer cigarettes each day until I found that having one or two cigarettes a day to remind myself that I was a smoker becaume a silly thing to do - that action of inhaling the smoke from burning vegetable matter became absurd!

If you are going to set resolutions make sure thay are few in number (having a list a mile long guarantees that some will be failed - why not set a list you can achieve?), your goals are realistic and achievable and - really important this one - have a deadline attached that is not some vague notion of "by the end of the year": you will kid yourself that you will get around to it at some point in the next 12 months, but you won't. And there is one more thing: you really need to want to achieve this goal. A friend has been trying to quit smoking for some while without success. The trouble is though, he enjoys it. Leaving aside the known health risks (we all know 'em), why is he going to deprive himself of something he enjoys. An attitude has to change before a resolution can be fulfilled.

So, I am avoiding the possibility of failure by not setting myself any 'disappointment targets' (or resolutions, if you prefer) for 2015. Apart from one. I'm not saying what it is but it should be come obvious as we progress through the year. Let's see if I can stick to the task, shall we?