Brian Explains New Year’s Resolutions – Thoughts from December 31, 2010

Brian Explains: New Year’s Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions come just once a year, but they can be broken all year long. New Year’s resolutions were never something I did. I would sometimes jokingly mention I was going to resolve to quit doing something or start doing something. I was never seriously intending to keep the resolution, though. When I resolved to pickle more things in one year, I gave it up after I pickled my breakfast cereal. Others have had New Year’s resolutions around me and I didn’t take their resolutions seriously either. In the next paragraph, I resolve to talk about my resolution to resolve my resolution making. Actually, I already feel like talking about something else, so I will.

Resolutions come in many shapes and sizes. Some people resolve to lose weight. Others want more money or better time management skills. I may want more sex, but my wife may want less sex. We all have different goals in life. Most people just want to improve themselves. They see the new year as a chance to reinvent themselves. I am one person today, but tomorrow I will literally and figuratively change who I am. Some people make up their New Year’s resolution ten minutes before the new year arrives. Usually, alcohol is involved in the decision and that is never a good decision-making position to put yourself. The good news is you probably won’t remember what you resolved to do in the next year, anyway.

The real question is why do people make New Year’s resolutions? As with every other motivation in human existence, we are governed by fear. We fear next year will be the same as the past year. A resolution is just that. You promise yourself something you may keep, but probably won’t. Don’t resolve to do something, just do it (I am not a spokesperson for Nike and resolve to never be one). Waiting until an arbitrary day to say that change is coming only cements the fact that you are not doing that thing right now. Just wake up one day and decide this is the day you are going to change something in your life. When you say I am going to cut down on fatty foods starting on the 1^st of the next year, that is too general. Tell yourself today is the day you are going to dust off the treadmill and tomorrow is the day you are actually going to jog on it for ten minutes.

Your resolution changes depending on whom you are talking to. Your mom doesn’t hear the “have more sex” resolution and your friends don’t hear the “spend more time with your cats” resolution (unless your only friends are your cats). We mainly tell others what we think they want to hear. If your doctor tells you to eat fewer donuts, you tell him or her eating fewer donuts is exactly what your resolution will be for the new year. Your audience informs your resolve. If you tell your friends at the local bar you are going to quit drinking in the next year, you probably won’t be invited to any of their New Year’s Eve parties.

My basic suggestion for New Year’s resolutions is make them only if you know that you probably won’t be following them a week after the New Year. Try making a new minute’s resolution. Promise to start doing the things you need to do in the next minute. Spend the next minute playing with your cats instead of sitting on your couch watching reruns of The Housewives of Alaska. My resolution for the next year is to have more decisive endings to my articles. To that end, I say squirrel.