The Skillz Report

2015: Approaching The On-Ramp

 

(originally written 12/29/14)

 

 

I used to be of the mindset that a new year meant a new or changed (insert noun here). Every couple of years I'd get up on my perch and declare "This is the year I finally get in shape!" or "This is the year I finally (insert long-unattained goal here)!" or "This is the year I (insert personality tweak)!"

I now realize that's asinine, and a change in the calendar shouldn't be the motivation for anything on its own. I could have easily waited until January 1st to put The Reduction 1.5 in motion, but if I had, not only would I have not lost the six pounds I've lost in the past two weeks—I likely would have added more, making a January pledge all the more difficult.

I will acknowledge that 10 weeks into 2015, I will be closer to 40 than 30. It seems like 30 just got here. I still can taste the pile of beef I ate that night and hear my four-month-old daughter's wild screeching that night. But I'm not here to talk about the past. 

Returning to topic...
A new year won't mean a new me, because I've been working on myself for, well, a while now. So there.
A new year won't trigger a list of "wants". If I want to do something, I'll do it because I want to, not because of a bunch of promises made in late December.

I look back on my past ATOR blogs and shake my head at the more than 80% of unmet goals and broken promises.

January 1, 2015 will be treated as any other regular day—my starving kid will wake me up well before I'm ready, I'll catch up my website, indulge in the Warriors and go three miles on the bike. The only change in my daily routine: driving even more carefully than normal, as tonight's partygoers swerve their way home with BAC's still pushing .20 despite 10 hours unconscious on somebody's floor.

Unlike so many others who need the calendar to motivate them, I will not be in the gym, I will not be spending time with anyone I don't care about, I will not be volunteering anywhere, I will not be enrolling in a college and I certainly will not be plastered up on some dating site (no offense to anyone who is; said sites have led to at least two marriages in my circle. It's the New Year's principle I'm attacking.)

This message is not meant to bring down anyone who is setting new goals for 2015—I genuinely hope you reach them. 
But if July 17 rolls around and I hear you say, "Starting next year I'm quitting smoking/caffeine/booze/etcetera", it's on.