Resolutions: It's that time of the year again

Yet another year and yet another set of resolutions. This annual practice of taking resolutions, it always reminds of the grief cycle. Initially everyone's happy with the new year, and as the days go by they gradually move away from their resolutions. This is when they enter the denial stage, where they are having trouble keeping up the resolution, yet they still believe everything is under control and things would get back on track. Then they move into the second stage, where they realize that they are not able to continue with the resolution, they are angry at themselves or others who helped them to detour from their resolution goals. Next comes the sadness phase, in which they are very emotional  on not being able to keep up with their resolution. And then they slowly move onto the next stage where the sadness decreases and they start to cope with the disappointing end to their resolutions of the year. And finally they just let go of the resolutions and move on with their routine, all set for taking resolutions again the very next year. Almost everyone goes through the stages, the time they stay in each may vary, but it's definitely there.

Courtesy: ShoeBoxBlog

Usually I'm not too inclined with this whole practice of taking resolutions, and I used to rationalize this by telling to myself,  that if you actually wanted to make or break a habit, why wait to the start of a year? Unless there's a secret resolution fairy that appears during the beginning of the year who makes you succeed with your resolutions. So I believed that people just take resolutions at the start of the year succumbing to peer pressure.

But perhaps, that is a good thing since taking resolutions in the beginning of the year is that  the peer pressure of taking and following up with a resolution, gives that much needed push to start the habit. In this world with its multitude of procrastinators, the new year presents itself as a beautiful excuse to start off with something that you had always wanted to do. Hence my reason for starting the year with my set of resolutions.

Although I have decided to continue to take resolutions for the new year, If history is any proof this resolution has little hopes of staying alive till the end of 2013. The maximum time it took me to break my resolution over the years is 3 months. It always started spectacularly, and then gradually tapered down to nothing. So this year I wanted to ensure that history doesn't repeat itself. This time I'm deciding to write my resolutions in public, perhaps this could make the difference.

Now to decide on the set of resolutions. I had 3 things that cropped up in my mind,  3 new and 1 tried and failed resolution.

1. More than 6 months, without breaking the resolutions
2. A post per week
3. A book per month
4. Learn something new once every 2 months

So if things go well and I stick to the plan, I should have a nice blog with more than 50 posts, read a dozen books and would have learnt at least 6 new things.

Will keep the blog updated on the progress, so it'd be a big motivation if you could drop in once in a while and leave a comment.

PS: The good thing is I'm already down 1  :)