Resolutionary
I am not going to tell you what bad habits I want to kick in 2009. I am not going to tell you what adventures I am going to embark upon in the next 365 days. I am not going to pen a list of a year’s worth of vices and their alleged cures, or prepare a highlights reel of the last 52 weeks. As Merlin Mann likes to scream over twitter: stop dreaming, hacking, and reading tips and just do. So, in an effort to halt the distractions and false pretenses, instead I am going to tell you what I learned about those kinds of traditional resolution lists, and what I’m going to do instead in the next twelve months.
Leo Babauta of Zen Habits recommends a different approach to goalsetting I have always struggled with. As someone who has about fifty things on her list at any given moment, I am often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of experiences I want to have and items on my to-do list, and any time I come to a resolution-making crossroads, I am tempted to make as complete a list as possible of ways to improve my life. But, as Leo so perceptively points out, this is the very problem. If I were to have a dozen goals to work towards and juggled them all at once, chances are six months from now all of them would still be incomplete. Leo’s mantra is minimalism: do less, but do it better. So if I spend my energy working on only one goal at a time instead of sixteen hundred (as I am so tempted to do), chances are six months from now I can cross three or four of them off my list simply by having a realistic vision of how much time and effort I can put towards any given goal, and also how much time and effort any new habit takes to form.
I think the problem goes deeper, too. In a conversation I had last month in Washington D.C., my sister pointed out that because we are our own worst enemies, we rarely revel in the goals we do accomplish. In fact, most people find it easier to criticise themselves for not doing something than praise themselves for doing something right (aka: giving yourself “praise biscuits”). I am certainly guilty of this, which means at the end of the day the picture I have in my brain has me always falling short, no matter how many amazing goals I have reached. In a structure like this, how can anyone feel successful? It’s a recipe for disastre. And no amount of email reminders or GTD books or web apps can change that.
Case in point: 2008. 2008 was an amazing year. I did so many amazing things, some on my list, some not on my list. I danced with strangers, I watched the sun rise and gazed at the stars on multiple occasions, I learned to surf, I took tons of photos, I kicked a pigeon, I fell in love with a martial art, and I visited Japan. Perhaps what made 2008 such an epic year was that I was incredibly mindful of what I was doing. I was aware of the good times and the bad, of my successes and my failures, and of the choices I made for better or worse. And after a few months of trying to be as mindful as possible, I started really looking at what I have accomplished. I have made so many dreams come true that it’s high time I give myself a praise biscuit and revel in the amazing experiences I’ve had. I made my own videogame, I wrote a novel, I played in a band, I hacked a computer, I learned photography, I snowboarded, I climbed Mt. Fuji, I slept in the Grand Canyon, I checked lots of books out of the library and read them, I completed a feature length film, I won something, and I created my own website and newsletter. Looking back with my newfound awareness, I realised these things on my list, these things that I wanted so badly to do, weren’t disappointing in the least. Doing them was more rewarding than I had imagined, and having done them is every bit as wonderful as I thought it would be. So in short, 2008 was a glorious, epic, amazing year.
In 2008 I also began one of the best traditions in my arsenal. Instead of making my own New Year’s Resolutions (sure to be forsaken by March), I let my friends make mine. What I ended up with was a list of “Awesome To-Dos for 2008″ and a few bad habits to get closer to kicking altogether. Of course I didn’t finish everything on the list (we’re only human, aren’t we?), but I did go through the year thinking on that list of fifteen resolutions, and lo and behold fulfilling even half of them was a phenomenal experience in and of itself. The concept is in the spirit as the movie Yes Man, with a similar conclusion. In addition to my unwavering agreement to the resolutions my friends made, I only allowed myself one goal. Only one thing to do, one area to work on, and that was it. Last year it was submit a pod to Current TV.
In 2009 I intend on doing the exact same thing. And while I have tens of areas of my life I’d like to improve, I’m going to take Leo’s advice and stick to one. In the vein of his Power of Less principle, I’m going to pick my habit and publicly declare it here and now. Leo’s goal for 2009 is to be more present. He’s going to accomplish this by practicing Zazen meditation for 10 minutes every day. My goal is to take my health more seriously in 2009: mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. And I am going to do this by setting aside time one day a week for my health, time I can spend chanting at the local Buddhist temple, meditating in my room, relaxing in a Korean bathhouse, getting a massage, taking a yoga lesson, or even just reading and drinking a few cups of good tea. I’m going to enlist the help of others to keep me on track as well, and I’m even considering one of these nifty little fitness trackers. But the point isn’t that I accomplish an insane number of tasks, or that I exercise every day without fail and never eat sweets, the point is to take one full, focused, and deliberate step towards merging the person you are with the person you want to be. So 2009 will be the year I give the power of less (one task at a time), and the power of mindfulness a go.
Here’s how the power of less works:
1. Pick a habit to adopt for the new year, 2. Publicly commit to your habit whether on a forum, a website, in a contract, or with a handshake, 3. Focus on the new habit for 10 minutes every day, no exceptions for one full month, 4. Be accountable for your progress: report your movements to ensure they get done.
click here to download the “9 Ways to Form a Habit” pdf