Be bloody, bold and resolute...

There seems to be a convention around New Year’s resolutions – that we all make them and then they have gone out of the window by about the 6^th of January. (I am writing this on January 6^th.)

I've tended to do slightly better than this when I look back over the last few years. Largely I think because my resolutions have been practical and easy to break into manageable chunks. Too long in business I guess, with people droning on about SMART* objectives. But it is true that objectives like “be happier” or “make the world a better place” are very hard to judge in a meaningful manner.

This doesn't mean that objectives have to be trivial by any means, it just means that rather than “exercise more” you resolve to “walk for an hour at least twice a week and go to the gym for 40 minutes three times a week”. Then you can plan these in rather than being lost in the overall task. I also believe that positive resolutions are better than negative ones. With a negative (“I will not drink on week nights” being a common one) you lapse once, and then think “Fuck it”**. With a positive it feels easier to me to get back on the horse if a week goes by and you've missed your target.

I have been thinking about resolutions for 2015, and I have been struggling. Yes people, my life is, in the words of the sage of modern times James Blunt, ‘brilliant’ and I have nothing to change. That was ironic, by the way.

It’s more that I have had a few years where it’s been easy to say “I really need to do that”, or “I want to do that” and they are quite big things. But this year there isn't a big thing that is readily apparent to me. I'm at least broadly happy (and in most cases very happy) with life, lifestyle, exercise, hobbies, job etc. Yes, I could for example be a bit more productive at times in the office, but that feels like a nebulous thing to try and tweak. But I don’t feel I want to take on a new musical challenge this year, nor do I want to change job, flat etc.

So should I just skip the resolutions thing completely? That feels wrong – I think it is good to have goals/areas to improve. I guess that’s the heart of the issue – my mind sees the black and white definition that you are either ‘improving’ or you are ‘drifting’, and I don’t really want to feel I am drifting *Insert cliche here about shark swimming forward or drowning etc.*

So what I have decided is that 2015 will be a year where I am going to investigate and try some new things. I am going to aim to try six new activities (new being something that has formed no measurable part of my daily life in the last twenty years) over the year. I am going to give each one of them a decent go. And if I then decide that they have added nothing to my life, or are merely using up time, I will let them go and move on. If they become part of the day-to-day then that is because they have shown themselves as having value.

I don’t have the full list yet; this will build over the year but I will start keeping a mental list of possibles. But I have the first two:

1. I listen to a few podcasts which interview successful people in their fields – they try to get to what is common amongst them – looking for a recipe I suppose***. It has struck me that a very large proportion of these interviewees spend a small part of each day doing what I really don’t want to call mediation, but for want of a better word am going to call meditation. Sometimes this is the full Buddhist version. More often it is putting some time aside on a regular basis to think about what you are going to do, and how you are going to achieve it. So I am going to spend the rest of January and February trying to build this into my schedule.
2. I am going to dip a toe into the world of MOOCs. Massive Open Online Courses that is. Not MOOGs, which are either cool synthesisers, or one of these:

(those of you not around in the early 80’s should just gloss over that – you don’t need to know).

I am going to find something that looks interesting, or possibly even useful, and sign up for it and do it.

Both these two are things that I need to find out more about. And I imagine I will have a few dead-ends or false starts on the way. But that’s part of the fun. I will report back.

*Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-specific, in case you a) didn’t know, and b) care.

** OK, you may not think this, but I probably would.

*** If you want lots of these in one place – try the Tim Ferriss Show – on iTunes. He’s sometimes a little smug and self-important for English tastes (in other words he's American), but does talk to a huge range of people who are successful, rather than celebrities, and who are generally interesting.