Screw New Year’s Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are awful. And not just because of the following (source: Wikipedia):

Recent research shows that while 52% of participants in a resolution study were confident of success with their goals, only 12% actually achieved their goals.

New Year’s resolutions are awful, because they are inherently build to fail. They are eerily similar to bad clients; ask for a lot, set vague boundaries and guidelines and fail at proper feedback. Instead of these flaming blobs of flying crap, people who want to intentionally change a part of their behavior should set themselves not resolutions, but targets (and these shouldn’t be at New Year’s only).

These targets should have well defined rules and a clear timeline:

  1. Specify the actions to achieve the target
  2. A clear timeline
  3. Milestones
  4. Reward(s)

One of my targets? Project52

  1. Specification: Blog actively, at least once per seven days.
  2. Timeline: January 1st, 2010 to January 1st, 2011
  3. Milestones: Monthly checks to see if I am on track
  4. Reward(s): A blog filled with – hopefully great – content. And probably astonishing piece of hardware (ie. camera, gadget, guitar) or a big trip (ie. Sydney, New York, San Francisco etc …)

Instead of randomly saying “I am going to [insert action or purchase] here, because I think I deserve it”, know that you deserve it. And do not – I repeat – DO NOT create a fucking spreadsheet with a shit ton of targets.

Keep it simple, become a better you.