It’s that time of year when we reflect on our decisions over the past year and meditate on what we can do better in the next. Formulating New Year’s resolutions is an important tradition that helps ensure we’re on a positive trajectory and don’t aimlessly wander through another 365 days.
Of course, it matters what kinds of goals you set. You’re probably familiar with the acronym S.M.A.R.T., which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based. When you craft your New Year’s resolutions, you should strive to structure goals that satisfy these criteria.
In my view, however, the most important of these criteria is ‘Achievable’. Too often people set goals that are overly ambitious, with no chance of ever being realized. Failing to achieve your objectives can be demoralizing and discourage you from setting future goals. For that reason, I prioritize the letter ‘A’ in S.M.A.R.T.
With that in mind, here are my s.m.A.r.t. goals for 2024.
- Buy a treadmill
Like many of you, I’d like to improve my personal fitness and become a healthier version of myself in 2024. Realistically, though, I’m not going to do that. What I can commit to doing is purchasing a device that hypothetically allows me to exercise in the comfort of my own home by compelling the act of running under threat of getting flung against the wall behind me like a rag doll.
To be clear, I don’t expect to use the treadmill. The most likely scenario is that it collects dust in the corner of some room prematurely dubbed my “home gym.” That’s why I’m only committing to purchase a treadmill; using it on a regular basis would require a degree of willpower and self-discipline that I have so far proven myself to not possess. The reason for that is probably rooted deep in my genes and therefore not subject to change on the basis of something as flimsy as a New Year’s resolution. But buying a NordicTrack online? That’s achievable.
- Read a book
I’ve done it before, but I think it would be healthy for me to do it again. I could pick up where I left off in The Magic Tree House series (I think it was Dolphins at Daybreak?). But at my age, I should probably choose something that will maximize the appearance of intelligence or sophistication, which I presume is the primary purpose of reading as an adult since the activity is inherently unpleasant.
I’m more likely to finish reading it, though, if the length is similar to Dolphins at Daybreak. Based mainly on that criteria, I’ve decided to read The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (evidently an Animorphs spinoff). At 67 pages long, I could conceivably finish it by the end of the year, at a pace of roughly 1 page per week. This is another example of a realistic goal that I could achieve with minimal effort—the key to a successful New Year’s resolution.
- Learn how to say “thank you” in Chinese
I think I know, but I need to Google it to make sure I’m getting the pronunciation/intonation right. I could strive for something more ambitious—like becoming conversational in the language. But what if I don’t? That would be disappointing. Besides, the odds of me—or any English-speaking person—learning a non-romance language in one year without complete immersion are exceedingly low. You think those YouTubers who claim fluency in 8 languages are legitimate? It’s a hoax. They may speak convincingly about the weather; but ask them to translate a newspaper article or a Bible verse, and you’ll see how limited the scope of their “fluency” really is.
So don’t fall for those “polyglot” cons. Set your sights low with your language-learning resolutions, and you won’t be disappointed.
- Converse with multiple people I don’t live with for 3 minutes or more
This is not an admission of any underlying condition. But my wife thinks this would be a good resolution for me.
And actually, it is pretty ambitious. Three minutes may not seem like a long time, but what if my conversation partner goes off-script and starts saying things I didn’t anticipate? Imagine I’m waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store and I initiate some friendly banter with the gentleman in front of me about the weather. Suppose that instead of dragging out our conversation about temperature, he goes rogue and asks me what I’m planning to cook with the items in my cart. All of a sudden, the vector space of possible responses expands exponentially. Before I know it, we’re swapping beef stew recipes and I accidentally invite him over for dinner. This is just one of the many ways unstructured conversations can go off the rails.
Given the potential for such a disastrous outcome, this resolution does require significant planning and forethought, so it may not fit well into the theme of “achievable” goals. But I suppose it’s okay to have one “stretch” goal, so long as your others are sufficiently underachieving.
- Get control of my finances by downloading the Excel At Money Spending Tracker
What did you think this blog post was about? My actual New Year’s resolutions? Naturally, the whole point was to plug my website’s raison d’être.
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