I was gonna make this thread a little closer to the date, but I guess I was beaten to it.
Personally, I am a big fan of New Year's Resolutions and I think I generally do a good job of keeping up with them (I think I may have like a 60-70% success rate). Never really understood all of the boilerplate negativity about why it makes no sense to choose the New Year to try to motivate yourself. It sure is arbitrary, but so are many things in life. That hardly matters if it is genuinely helpful for you, and we as a culture choosing a specific time is also helpful for us to support each other and keep each other accountable. Better to shoot for it at New Year's, rather than never at all. Just comes down to being honest with yourself.
Anyway, I think resolutions are best phrased in terms of tangible goals, so you will actually know whether you achieved it or not.
- Putting more effort into schoolwork
- Stop putting things off
For example, how would you really quantify how much effort you are putting in, or when it is appropriate to put something off or not, or how long? I feel like a more useful phrasing would be to dedicate X number of hours a week to these things, or shoot for getting certain grades. That way you'll be able to actually measure and absolutely know if you are doing it or not.
Anyhow, here are mine for 2021:
1) Become more fluent in Vietnamese. This is one that I have had for a few years now and never really felt like I achieved, mainly because of what I said above, failing to really quantify what that meant. So I think my tangible goal for this year would be, by the end of the year,
have a full conversation with my mom completely in Vietnamese.
2) Finally learn to read music. Another one I've put off for too long. It's just way too easy to just play things by ear, and every time I try to read I just get bored and start just learning whatever I was playing by ear instead. But I think that a lot more opportunities open up for a musician who knows how to read, especially if I want to compose, so I want to do that sooner than later. My tangible goal for this would be to
learn all 12 keys, all regular time signatures, and get 100% on a note flashcard quiz. (Tip for anyone else who wants to do this: read music away from any instrument. That way you'll focus on just reading it, not playing it. Also you don't get distracted and play something you already know instead.)
3) Compose at least 3 pieces of at least 12 measures each. It's a start. Maybe I'll do more, but I want to do at
least this.
4) Be able to do 6 pullups at a time. I'm at like 3-4 now. So it's lowballing but I haven't been able to lift much or eat as healthily since the quarantine, so once again I think it's better to undershoot than overshoot.
5) Get employed. Just finished grad school this month so of course this is the next step.
6) Finally get started on my novel/serial. This is a weird one because I don't really know how much is realistic to expect in one year. So maybe as it goes, I'll have a better idea on how to quantify it. But it's a lower priority for me.
There are a bunch of minor things too, just like interpersonal stuff or monetary but not really list-worthy.