New Year's Resolutions: If Will Power Isn't Enough by Joanne Silberner

9 to 5 Poet posted her 2009 New Year’s Resolutions recently. We had been discussing them for a few days. Oddly enough, the day were driving around, NPR had a segment on the resolutions, New Year's Resolutions: If Will Power Isn't Enough. It was about those who are to keep them and those who can’t and the psychological differences between the two. It kind of sounds like one of those jokes that begin, ‘there are only two types of people in the world…” Yet, it was a good program with some nice insights into the right kind of resolutions, when to make them, and when to start them.

I don’t remember all of the advice. You might want to listen to this segment yourself. The tactics for success that I remember and hope to engage are:

1. Realistic goals.

Goals that I know that I will come close to accomplishing, but that are challenging enough that I won’t complete them by March.

2. Use the buddy system.

I’m going to give my goals to a couple of people and have them check in on me from time to time. I hope to employ the following people in my buddy system: 9 to 5 Poet, Simple Spoonful, and Mr. HorrorPants.

I know that there should be a 3, but like I said, I didn’t remember them all. Sorry, all you three freaks out there will just have to do with 2. I’m not happy with two, but I will live.

Drum roll please, my 2009 New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Write 4 pages of fiction every week.

2. 5 short fiction reviews post to The Soulless Machine Review each month.

3. 2 movie reviews posted to Attack of the Movie Watchers each month.

4. Maintain a weight between 165 and 170.

5. As professional development, peruse Minnesota Master Naturalists Association

And there they are, my 2009 New Year’s Resolutions.

Silberner, Joanne. New Year's Resolutions: If Will Power Isn't Enough. NPR. Morning Edition, December 28, 2006