Resolution Time

Well, folks, it’s almost that time of year.  

I am a very solid believer in New Year’s Resolutions.  Almost every year I sit down and write out some things that I wish to accomplish.  Each year is different, and I have experienced varying degrees of success from year to year.  Will I be successful this year?  Who knows?  But what I do know was that 2015 was not a smashing success for me when it came to my resolutions.

I set out to lose some weight and run back-to-back marathons, but I did neither.  I did finish two marathons (the A1A in February and the Marine Corps in October), but my finishing times were progressively slower.  This morning I weighed in at 235 pounds – still far off the 2013 highs, but about 15 pounds heavier than where I finished 2014.

So where does it go from here?  What kind of goals should I set for 2016?

From years of analyzing my goals, I find that there are two factors involved in whether or not I am ultimately successful in reaching them.

The first is whether or not I am in the right frame of mind.  Some years I have been extremely focused.  I knew what needed to get done and I did it.  Other years, I knew what I had to do, but I didn’t really feel completely motivated.  Maybe I started out with good intentions, but over time some resolutions fizzled out.

The second factor is the goal itself.  I’ve discovered a strange dynamic for me when it comes to goal-setting.  One rule of thumb is that the goal should be “achievable,” which to me sounds somewhat defeatist.  It’s almost as if you should set your sights low so that you’re sure to meet them.  I don’t like goals that are merely “achievable.”  For example, “Lose five pounds” is certainly achievable, while “Lose 50 pounds” is more of a challenge.  Is losing 50 pounds achievable?  For me, maybe – but it would be a hell of an accomplishment at this point.

Furthermore, I have always had a certain fascination with achieving outrageous goals.  I think part of that comes from relishing the notion that most people think you can’t do it.  Tell someone you want to lose five pounds?  Eh… ok.  No big deal.  But tell them you want to lose fifty?  Some of them are just going to say, “No way you can do that!”

Watch me.

Is losing fifty pounds in 2016 a goal for me?  Maybe.  I have a few goals I want to achieve in the upcoming year and right now I’m feeling as though I’m in a good frame of mind.  What’s the saying?  Go big or go home?  I think it’s time to do a little of that.

This year, I have one completely outrageous goal in mind.  Unfortunately for readers of this blog, I’ve decided to pretty much keep it to myself.  There are a couple of reasons for that, but if I do achieve this goal, fifty pounds of weight loss would likely be a correlating result anyway.  So let's go with that as a goal.  (Man, I'm gonna have to buy some new pants!)

The main reason I have decided to keep the bigger goal to myself isn’t to hide behind it or adjust it if I don’t reach it.  Instead, it is because of a secondary goal that I have, which is to write a book.  Relax, I’m not going to shove it down your throat every day with a gazillion tweets and marketing blogposts.  I just want to write it for myself.  I will self-publish it, charge very little, and probably donate much of any proceeds to charity.  I’m not looking to becoming wealthy by pushing my book on people.  

But I am definitely aware that maintaining a blog is difficult enough without constantly refreshing the content, and writing a book seems like a much better avenue for a single dad with a 6-year old daughter and a marathon fetish.  I’ll just write whenever I have time.

Writing this book seems like a challenging accomplishment on its’ own, and it will be interesting to see how I overlap maintaining this blog and what I reveal here with what I save for the book (nobody wants to buy a book full of blog posts they have already read).  I’m looking forward to this challenge in 2016 and wish all of you the best of luck with your own resolutions.