People often ask me why I do not do New Years resolutions. I really don’t see the point. I prefer to just have goals and stick to them in my day to day life. I also do not believe in the whole “New year new me” shit. It excuses you of shit you did last year and you’re putting your faith in a number changing. Nah fam. I will fix my shit and change how I am throughout the year to improve.
I may not see the point but I get the point of doing a resolution. You want to fix your stuff and set goals to improve your life. Jan first just makes it the easiest way to measure yourself. You can see progress over a year directly compared to actively keeping track. However, I think that is the negative of resolutions. When you don’t have to put in that small bit of extra effort you already give yourself a lazy out. I also think people put too many goals or too big of goals without a proper road map or understanding of what the fuck they’re doing.
Another fun thing about resolutions is I often destroy them for others. This is always by accident but it is funny how I destroy them. How do I do it? I ask, “How do you plan to do this?” and “Why do you want to do this?” These questions aren’t meant to harm but inform.
An example I have is I knew someone who wanted to lose 100 pounds in a year. “How do you plan to do this?” at this question they gave up. They had no idea. They said “I’ll just diet and exercise.” “Do you know how to?” “Yes…” no they didn’t. When they asked me how I lost a lot of my weight and I explained the long process I went through to lose 60 pounds it was too much for them.
What was my process that was too hard for them?
First, I monitored my diet for two weeks. Here I logged everything I ate and drank. When and how much. I noticed I was drinking a lot of soda.
Second, I cut my soda intake by a can a week. This is important because if you just quit your body freaks out. Even now, I am having issues cutting soda again since I picked it up as a comfort drink again. It is very hard to do. However, I am doing a good job so far cutting soda back out of my life. I still have days where I am just drained or can’t sleep unless I have a Coke, addiction sucks.
Third, I looked back at my diet to see what else needed to be cut. Unhealthy snacks and unneeded eating. Slowly shaving this away.
Fourth, I started to cook at home. I didn’t even massively change my diet here. I just started to cook at home. Cooking at home I lost a lot of weight with too even though I was eating the same shit. I just knew what was going in it and was able to control it.
Fifth, I cut down on how much I ate.
Eventually I just started to lose weight and a lot of it. Cutting soda and cooking at home just had me shedding weight. This entire time I did not go to the gym, go for walks, or anything. It was pure diet control. By the time I started to go to the gym that was actually to just improve my cardio and general health. At this point the gym wasn’t even causing me to lose weight. I gained muscle and my weight loss started to crawl because I was turning fat to muscle. However, it picked back up again.
This is what I mean when I say the “How” question ruins people’s resolutions. A lot of people just say they’ll do it and think minimal effort will cut it. Think “I can just go the gym and lose weight” No, you gotta do a lot more then that. You have to improve each aspect that is causing you to gain weight. Right now I am trying to get down to 70KG and I am starting this up again. I am monitoring what I am eating, trying to cook back at home, and do it all over again. I got a lot of weight to lose.
Next the question of “Why?” “Why do you want to do this?” often people have no real answer or a horrible one for why they want to do something. I remember one person wanting to find a girlfriend as a resolution. I asked why. The dude said so he can stop being lonely and learn to love life and have a reason to live. Yeah, fuck that. I had to tell him he was looking for a relationship to fix his issues and would instead just cause way more. That he needs to fix that shit himself first then find a girlfriend. This is the thing people need to realize. When we make a resolution we also need to have a good reason why we want to do it and a plan on how to do it.
It also needs to be obtainable within your power. I have seen a lot of people say they will get 1 million subs, 10k subs, 100 subs, or whatever on YouTube/Twitch/Social media of choice. Look, this is not an in your power obtainable goal. This is up to the whims of others. You should never put your resolutions or goals into the hands of others. You can do everything perfect and one bad algorithm change, off joke, or new person coming up could ruin everything. I am actually writing a piece on my dissection of YouTube’s algorithm. Which was dissected so much my Google AdSense account was banned over it. Different topic.
I’d also just advise against any that rely on your internet presence. That’s just my personal suggestion.
With all this said I am continuing my goals from before the new year:
I am trying to lose weight.
Why? So, I can find clothes that fit easier (half joke) and so I will just be healthier. I want to have a family of my own. I can’t die early due to heart disease or other issues and leave my family in trouble. It will be better for me. My body will hurt less and I will live a better life.
How will I do this? With the steps outlined above and getting back into a work out regiment. I am setting up a workout system at home to get my body ready to going back to the gym and jogging outside. I am also working on finding a trainer/class to go to.
I am trying to finish my RPG.
Why? I have been working on and off for on this for a bit now. I really want to finish it and get it out there just for me. I do not expect this game to even be played or take off in anyway past like 10 people. Even that I am pushing it. If I manage to sell a copy I’ll actually be happy. This’ll also help me get back into programming and designing. Which can be the jump start I need for Alien Outkast Studios.
How will I do this? I am writing my design document. I am organizing it. I am writing pseudocode again and trying to get everything operating. I am trying to price out music, art assets, and software needed. I am documenting what I can and doing what I can do get this started. Everything is going slow right now but I am shaking off the cobwebs. I have a lot of things I need to convert between files and organize in the main design document. To get everything easily accessible and legible.
I am trying to publish my first story.
Why? I’ve been writing things in private for a while and never finished due to the fear of being laughed and rejected. So, this is just me conquering my fear. I want to get over this fear because I actually like to write but I am so terrified of showing it to anyone. Even writing up blog posts is a challenge for me. Oddly enough these have helped.
How will I do this? By writing a small story that I have already outlined and mildly fleshed out. I am working on fleshing it out now and writing it. It’s not going to be written in a traditional story sense. So, this’ll make it easier to write. It will help me get used to writing, feed back, publishing and all that again. The story will be free and available here. More on that when the time comes.
Learn more Chinese.
Why? 我在中国。I am in China. Life will be easier when I can learn to read and speak.
How will I do this? Study and attend my Chinese classes regularly. I am already doing a better job of studying.
With that I want to say happy new years and if you have a resolution try to make it realistic and plan it out. It’s okay to fail but don’t give up and do your best to make it possible!
I actually wrote this four days ago. I just never got on my laptop to publish it. In those 4 days I have lost 1 KG. Almost finished getting my design document organized and I am doing better in my Chinese classes.