A Resolution for 2012

Happy New Year!  For all of my dedicated readers and fellow libertarians, I wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year.  I am hoping that 2012 starts off with a thumb into the eye of the Republican establishment with a Ron Paul win in Iowa.

I am not a big fan of resolutions.  If there is something that you need to improve in your life, why wait until the new year?  However, I understand that a new calendar year is a symbolic new beginning for many people.

If you are going to come up with a new resolution for yourself, make it something that will get you closer to a goal and make it something achievable.

If you are trying to be healthier or you are trying to lose weight, don’t set some unrealistic goal of going to the gym every day when you currently don’t go at all.  Don’t make a resolution that you are going to eat vegetables every day when the only vegetable you currently eat in a week is in the form of french fries.  Instead, take one actionable and achievable step.  For instance, perhaps you currently drink too much soda (pop for some of you northerners).  Make a resolution that you will only drink one soda per day (with an exception made for special occasions).  Instead of drinking coke for lunch and dinner, maybe you can drink water for one meal and have a soda for the other.

This is an achievable step and it is a small step towards improving your health.  You may even drop a couple of pounds doing this.  It is something that you can change that you might actually be able to sustain.

If you have a financial goal, take a small actionable step that will seem insignificant at first, but will add up to being significant over time.  For example, maybe you can put an extra 20 dollars per week into savings.  Maybe you can eat out one less time per week.  Maybe you can skip your morning Starbucks and just treat yourself on certain days of the week.

Many people have many different goals, but many never take an actionable and realistic step to come closer to achieving their goals.  If you have wanted to start a blog, then (to steal from Nike) just do it.  You don’t have to start writing 5 or 6 days a week.  This will be hard if you are currently not writing at all.  Instead, start posting something twice a week and see if you can get up to three or four times a week.

Perhaps you are unhappy in your current job but haven’t done anything about it.  Update your resume and look to see if there is anything better out there.  Maybe there won’t be anything better, but shouldn’t you at least look to see?

There are so many small things that we can do to improve our lives, but we never seem to get to them.  Just spending 15 minutes a day on something can go a long way to actually achieving a long-term goal.

Do yourself a favor in 2012 and take one small actionable step that gets you closer to achieving something.

Happy 2012!