I can’t bear New Year resolutions & never have. Cannot understand the reason people do them. Why would I stop doing something I enjoy & If I’m doing it/them now then it’s for a reason. A very strange ritual.
It is a bit of an odd thing, but as someone else suggested it's a good excuse to wipe the slate clean and start again. The whole putting things on a timescale, I absolutely agree with that. New Year Resolutions are one of my favourite bits of the end of December/early January. It is also a guess a bit of a tradition, and I'm happy to keep that going. It shouldn't make a difference, but I do take advantage of the opportunity to start afresh. Ending a bad habit at the end of a year and starting cleaner ones at the beginning of a new year, obviously the ending of the habit should be done ASAP but that's just not how many people do things. I had a habit that I finally, after something like 15 attempts, managed to bin in the autumn of 2019 and I set the target completion date of 31st December 2019. There had been a few bits that needed to be finished off, to make sure the habit was permanently gone, and sure enough it was ticked off and removed from my to-do list. Without a target date, I might have just left the finishing touches, in this case making sure all cravings were dealt with permanently, until an unknown time and stuck with the extra-strong mints.
It was interesting that just a few days later, having also started the wind-down of another personality trait, that I completely moved forward with binning both that one and another. Neither had been planned, but happened a few days into 2020. Neither had been a resolution as such, I had set in place a mission to severely cut back on the alcohol intake but instead a few days later I went for complete teetotal instead. No wind-down gradually, as per the plan, and I am so glad I did it when I did, just a matter of weeks before the lockdowns started! This is all relevant because I'd set in place the target to finish my cut-down on alcohol by the end of December 2020.
Point here is that sometimes having a New Year Resolution and/or a target date can make a HUGE difference. It shouldn't, but my personal experience is that it does. Not always, as my 2018 Grand Plan proved with that never being fully resolved and has been reinstated for the bits I didn't do, but hey that's just how the brain works with some of us I guess!
I’m sure a lot of us can associate with this one.
100% agreed, the weight I put on with my Covid recovery is still there. I haven't got back to full power yet, even now the body struggles. I won't go into it too much here, but I did note that you've got a plan to get out cycling. A fantastic idea, if I remember to do so I'll PM you about that. In case I don't, my first bike of my own in adulthood was a cheap mountain bike from Halfords in 2020 and it opened up so many opportunities to explore that I am so grateful for. Quite, your post helped to remind me of the joy of cycling and that I have got two cycles waiting a thorough clean and/or repairs. They are on my to-do list!
As for my own New Year Resolutions, I'm not going to share everything but I have a handful of main goals for 2023. The ones I am happy to discuss are:
1) Get a new and better job (easier said than done right now, granted);
2) Learn to drive and get driving ASAP;
3) Move to a nicer place;
4) Get back into a better state of physical health;
5) Conclude my World Frenzy series, now the whole thing's been re-focused, with New Zealand and the Grand Canyon.
Other goals are not up for discussion, and number 4 in the above list has yet to be figured out in terms of how I'm going to measure completion etc. None of the list is in any particular order, but they are all linked. In my view, number 1 will not happen until after number 2 has been successfully completed, and with 1 and 2 done then number 3 will hopefully then be possible. I've been going to achieve number 2 for some months now, but I recently took action and renewed my provisional driving licence. That arrived yesterday, and today I've booked a 2 hour driving lesson for 3rd January 2023
I've discussed it elsewhere on the forum, but the last time I tried to learn to drive the anxiety levels were through the roof.
Until very recently, I've often described the situation to colleagues as that I would rather skip around the shop for 12 hours, hand in hand, with the boss singing cheesy songs at the top of my voice. With suitable breaks to refuel on energy stores, of course
At some point last week, I don't know when, I appear to have found a way to deal with the anxiety. How I will do it, I don't know, but I guess when the day arrives I will be fine. I'm not booking anything further until I have done that 2 hour session, and I see what this instructor is like.
As for number 5, until recently I still had a plan to visit 30 countries by the time I hit 40 years of age. With a shade under 2 years to go until that target, and being nowhere near the required number, I spent a lot of time analysing whether that was a good idea still or not. The outcome, after using dead time at work to process trains of thought, was that the idea of frantically going around ticking places off is no longer desirable. The focus has changed, and I'm going to conclude the World Frenzy series with the last two big trips that I do not feel I can do with others. Those are New Zealand and the Grand Canyon. Seattle has reappeared on the list of city breaks to do, after watching a video from Steve Marsh on YouTube. That one, however, I'm happy to move to the 'trips to do with someone else' list, although if I get the chance to do it solo I'll jump on it. New Zealand has been costed on some of the bits I want to do, in short the flights will be one of the cheapest bits of the entire trip! It's going to be my last big solo adventure, that much I am sure of, so it's at the top of my list of trips to make. No other adventure will compare to New Zealand, and it's going to cost a fortune, so for a 'once in a lifetime' trip I'm putting as many resources into it as possible
Whether it comes before or after the Grand Canyon, I don't know, but I have recently bought a fold-out map of New Zealand. Usually a purchase of a map gives an indication of a commitment to a trip, which is silly but I don't care about that. 2 weeks will be allocated to New Zealand, anything less is simply not going to be enough. Currently with this trip, it being ultra-long-haul, I'm requesting the brain to find a way to deal with sitting on an aircraft for many hours. Things have changed dramatically since my last long-haul trips in late 2019 and early 2020, I'm not as good at sitting in one place for a long time now!
So yes, that is (most of) my New Year Resolutions! The others are strictly under lock and key, for my eyes only. Let's just say that I fully expect to end 2023 in a drastically different position to that I'm ending 2022 in!
Oh, and my final thought for now is that I'm getting my World Frenzy series back up and running on 8th January 2023 with an 8 day adventure encompassing London, Amsterdam and Inverness
It's been a long time coming, given my last World Frenzy trip was in March 2022! Of course, the weather might have a hand to play in it all, but I already have a clear vision that by the time I return to Hereford on 15th January 2023 that I will have an entirely new outlook on absolutely everything, that everything will begin to change, that everything is about to get awesome. The vision I have of 2023, well as you may have gathered, reveals lots of big changes that this time last year I would have laughed at, they'll never happen. This time in 2023, I hope to reflect heavily (the last 16 days or so of a year often see a ton of reflection, planning etc) on the year with a lot of satisfaction. Right now, I don't have a clear observation of what will happen and when, but the groundwork has been put in place and the foundations are almost set. 2023 builds upon a shade over 5 years of effort to completely overhaul things, and I've just decided that I'm going to celebrate when the goals are all cleared with a Wagamama meal. Mmm, Wagamama *licks lips*
So I guess I'll leave the floor open to everyone else, anyone else using 2023 as an opportunity to make big changes?
