New Year, Old Me

Welcome to the New Year! After a lot of speculation about all things Mayan it seemed pretty touch and go for a moment there, but we have made it into 2013! But now that I’ve made it, what am I going to do with myself in the new year? And what lessons can I learn from last year from mistakes that I (hopefully) won’t have to repeat?

I won’t lie, 2012 has been a difficult year. I quit my job last year to work on writing full time and try to make my living at it and it has at times been…difficult. It is my intention in 2013 to take all of the hard won lessons I’ve learned from opening my own business (which is how I see self-publishing) and push forward in the last few months that I have given myself to make this dream happen. I may not succeed, but at least it won’t be because I didn’t put in the time or effort.

But what chances to I really have of succeeding? According to a study by the University of Scranton only 8% of people who make a New Year’s resolution are successful in completing it. I don’t know much about math, but I don’t’ care for those odds. On the other hand, those that explicitly make resolutions are ten times more likely to reach them than those that don’t.

I think this is part of the wonderful power of words. Saying something, to yourself or out loud, makes the idea become real. Takes something that you’ve been kind of kicking around in your head, like “I want to lose weight” or “I want to spend less money and save more” and turns it into a goal that you’ve articulated. Turns it from something ephemeral into something much more tangible.

But I also think that a big part of the reason so many of us are unsuccessful in our attempts is because we sketch too big of an idea. “I want to write more” is an idea. “I want to write at least 2500 words per day” is a goal. “I want to be successful as a writer” is a hope. “I want to know, when I reach the time limit I set for myself, that I have done all that I possibly could to make my dream come true” is more descriptive but still too open to interpretation once the year gets rolling and I lose all of my introspective can-do attitude.

So that’s my New Year’s Resolution. Not to make some big, intangible, lofty goal. I resolve to spend this next week deciding exactly what I think success is for myself and what I’m willing to put in over the next six months to get there. I resolve to make my own measuring sticks instead of some arbitrary hopes or comparisons to other people. And I think that’s the best I can realistically do because after all, it might be a new year, but I’m the same old me.