Well, 2009 is upon us, and for those of us who believe in them, it's time to make our New Year's resolutions. I have to admit, I've been one of those people who don't believe in New Year's resolutions. After all, if you're not eager enough to do something right now, you're probably not going to stick with it. Want to stop smoking? Do it when you're ready. That might be on January 1st, but it may just as well be on any other day of the year. So why bother making resolutions? And how do you make a resolution that's going to stick?
It's really refreshing to look at today as the first day of a completely new year where I can change important things in my life. Some of those things I wonder about, and others I just have to have the resolve to do, and they are in my reach.
Last year, I made a simple and attainable resolution that I hoped I would be able to stick with, and that would get me back into a habit that I'd been sorely missing: I resolved to read a novel every month. It's a resolution I was able to keep. I didn't have to work too hard to do it. I had about 50 minutes of reading time on the train every day during my commute from Pasadena to my job Downtown at the LA Times. I ended up reading 16 novels last year, up from only two novels in the previous five years.
Why did it work? I think it worked because all I needed was to form a new habit. I had plenty of time to read the books, it was something I truly wanted to do, and all I needed was to make a commitment to myself that I was going to take the time to do it.
This year I'm resolving to be better about social networking. Everybody I know is already involved with social networking, and I'm partly involved already. I know that if I improve my social networking, it will be good for both my personal life and for my career. I have a decent LinkedIn profile, a Facebook account complete with friends from high school I still don't talk to, a Twitter account, and several blogs that I haven't updated in a while. I'm picking two of those for improvement: Twitter and blogging.
For those of you who don't know Twitter, you should really check it out. It's a great way to stay connected to people around you, and of course it's a lot more fun, the more people you know who are active on Twitter.
So, this year, I resolve to:
- Tweet at least once a day
- Post at least one blog entry a week on one of my blogs
P.S. Yes, this blog post counts as my first of the year. Maybe this is gonna be too easy. I'm already 1.92% of the way there!
