New Year's Resolutions

Last year, around this time I made New Year's Resolutions. They aren't typical resolutions, they were designed to be specific, incremential behavior changes that could be boiled down to near-maxims. I don't know if people can really make habit changes straight away, especially when January weather, winter daylight hours and general unavailability of resources. And people don't grow the person they are with the typical resolutions of exercising, saving money and quitting smoking--just their quality of external life. I wanted to improve internal quality in 2009.

Some of these were created by me, some were other people's suggestions, blog post topics, etc. It's been a year, so I can't properly attribute anything, I apologize! I do know that Gretchen Rubin of "The Happiness Project" is an influence, and so is Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist. So was a local gal, 52 Resolutions.

For my improvement and your consideration:

1. Take care of issues, don't defer maintenance

Meaning: don't put off what will get worse with time or wear, and don't play the "time" game by holding back bill money till it's due. Deferring maintenance also applies to accounts--I promised myself that I would not have one late payment this year. This hasn't been a problem for me, but I planned ahead to be vigilant during a year of distractions, especially since I was joining my credit to my husband's perfect, spotless credit. Many people espouse the idea that you should hold on to your own money as long as you can. I believe for that reason, people should get their taxes done early, but not in the case of any other accounts, especially not revolving credit.

2. People are most important. Reach out.

Sometimes I don't reach out when I should, and I get shy, despite my outgoing personality. It's because I fear rejection.

I joined Twitter at the end of last year and have found it is safe and easy to venture out in 140 increments. But because of my use of Twitter, I HAVE had more opportunities to help relative strangers over the past year and it made my heart feel good every time.

3. Add value. Do my share and more.

I think I tried to do this, but I can still improve. I did this by trying to "put icing" on whatever I did--going over what was expected of me, and doing

4. Don't care about the little crappy piddly stuff, especially if it promotes inferiority.

I don't know if I made any progress in this area. I did get away from the organization that seemed

to be the universe's source of piddly inferiority, but small things, small ideas and small people still bother me.

5. Failure is my friend, Perfectionism is not.

I failed a LOT in 2009. I burned a lot of food, I had a lot of emails go out without attachments on the first try, I said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But at least I cooked, emailed, and spoke. And I was more okay with the failures, at least I attempted, right? I still struggle with perfectionism that stalls me, but I ventured out a LOT more and tried to let perfect not be the enemy of good.

6. Don't flake out: Keep the committments, or don't make the commitment.

I didn't cancel much this year. And I never stood anyone up. Not that I had a problem with that, but I didn't beg off as much as I have in past years. In fact, I kept a lunch date that was rather painful a week ago! It was worth it, I got a lot of closure out of meeting with that person.

7. Money will shake itself out. Forget it.

I did. And you know what? We're NOT better off than we were last year, but we're still in our house, we still eat well, we still have money in savings/investments and we still have money coming in. Maybe we can't take another vacation for awhile, and maybe we'll put off buying a quieter dishwasher this year, but we're happy and we got everything else we wanted this year, including a fancy snowblower.

8. Trust instincts with people, trust rules with things.

I did. I WAS RIGHT. And I feel vindicated.

9. Is Not your business.

10. Mantra: "We come into this world with nothing, and we leave with nothing. But while we're here we have to be stewards of something"

I'm really proud of my friends and I for embarking on. I'm proud of our partnerships and friendships, with both the big and small dogs in town. There's room for everyone, room for every project that helps keep pets in their homes, and our mission is clear: we will make the world a better place through kindness to animals.

How did I do? Well. I kept a lot of them. I worked on others. And I accomplished #10, which I feel is the most important! I give the year a good solid B+. I still haven't written my resolutions for 2010 yet. Let me know what some of your non-traditional resolutions are!