A new twist to New Year resolutions

2009 is coming to an end. With the new year approaching, what do you hope to achieve in 2010? Reflecting on the happenings of 2009 gives us a chance to see the lessons that can be learnt, and to make 2010 a better year with added knowledge and wisdom.

Sum up your year in a sentence. What would you say? Maybe there’s just one thing you have learnt from 2009. What would it be? Is there a value to New Year Resolutions?
Many people have ambivalent attitudes towards New Year resolutions, me included.

And yet it is good to set some directions for 2009 and start the New Year on a positive note. Taking actions, fine-tuning plans and maintaining momentum to achieve the goals becomes the real challenge as time will prove. Any heads nodding in agreement?

For many years I wrote down goals and practised setting New Year resolutions. Haven’t found it to work pretty well so far.

Here I give a new twist to setting New Year resolutions. I’ve come up with a different approach to guide me in setting goals that I can definitely achieve by the end of the year, or even earlier.

My three guiding principles for New Year resolutions are:

1.    “Core Essential” goals

This year, I will set goals but keep them to a crucial few. The core essentials I call them. They will keep me more focused. Likelihood of achieving them also increases naturally.

2.    “Impossible not to achieve” goals

What do I mean? Set goals that are straightforward and not too hard to achieve. In other words, unless something goes terribly wrong, it is a definite bingo to realize your goals and put a tick on your goal checklist.

3.    “Feel good” goals

Am I emphasizing a pleasure-driving way of life and advocate that everyone should act according to what makes them feel good? Not really. But seriously speaking, what motivates people? Things that make them feel good. There could be a hundred good reasons why you should eat a low-fat and low-meat diet. But in reality you don’t because to abstain from eating KFC or a bowl of your favourite Katong Laksa simply is “unimaginable” or doesn’t appeal to you. So why torture yourself, struggle to achieve your goals and end up being unhappy?

Go ahead. Set your New Year resolutions for 2009 using these principles. Breeze through 2009 and achieve your goals.

Here are my own New Year resolutions:

1.    Being in the Present

The first goal I’ve set for 2010 is to practise being in the present. The highly acclaimed book The Power of NOW by Eckhart Tolle has made such tremendous impact on readers across so many countries and continents. Zen philosophy has also advocated the practice of present moment awareness for centuries. In 2010, I will make conscious efforts to focus on the tasks at hand and secondly, to think less about the past or the future.

2.    Experiences beyond the usual in dining

I am promising myself to check out a new restaurant or try a totally unfamiliar cuisine once every 3 months. If I like the experiences and the novelty, I will do it more often.

3.    Bringing teaching to a new height

I hope to become better at teaching maths and help my students learn and understand maths with more ease. Students who started lessons with me usually came with a negative attitude towards maths or told me they found it “confusing” and “hard”. A personal accomplishment would be for me to hear my students having a much more positive experience and attitude and telling me that maths is “easier to figure out nowadays”.

The day I will hear such comments from my students…I am certainly on the way to achieving this goal.

Marilyn Chee is a Singapore-based freelance educator in mathematics and phonics reading. Contact her at leyichee@yahoo.com.

You will like these as well!

• Why your new-year resolutions would not stick
• Heal Your Relationships to Heal Yourself
• 3 powerful tips for making 2009 your best year ever
• My Top Resolution for 2010
• Make 2010 the Year of Your Life!
• New year resolutions that will never fail!
• Be careful of what you dream in 2010
• 2010
• Tickling new-year thoughts jumping up and down.
• Manifest your intentions with the power of words

Featured Tickles Here Is Your D-I-Y Kit For A Leading Edge Life Management gurus and their disciples, thinkers, strategists and business process re-engineers have been busy propelling the modern world into not only coping with, but also keeping in step with the rapid changes of an ever shrinking, increasingly competitive and exhaustingly demanding global market. Continue reading I Wish I Were A Goldfish I am told that a goldfish cannot remember anything beyond a 3 minute time frame. One of my favorite pastimes is to sit and watch our goldfish swim around lazily and rising up only to gobble at the food before going back to their contented existence. Their swimming around actually reminds me of chil Continue reading The Fine Art of Persuasive Communication! There are many areas to look at in communication: a message is communicated through visual, vocal and verbal means. From that, comes the importance of body language, how we present ourselves, and so on. The visual and vocal elements are indeed very important to effective communication, but we will Continue reading Teaching the teacher The arbiter of knowledge and skills, the teacher, is a revered figure around the world. In India, the teacher is known as the guru, the wise one who can be trusted to lead the knowledge-blind and shine the light of competence and skills in the darkness of ignorance and incompetence. Over time it ha Continue reading My 5 rules for life 1. There are no rules. Structures, how-to's, dogma, principles...all disciplines and theories should be used to support your freedom and independent thinking. Curiosity is exponentially more powerful than playing by the rules. 2. Say thank you. Gratitude is one of the most creative and noble forc Continue reading How To Nurture A Successful Relationship Have you ever wondered how certain couples were able to stay together for many years? What are they doing right? What are the factors that contribute to the success of healthy, long term relationships? There are a few fundamental components that will improve your chances of having a successful relat Continue reading Waves Of Inspiration I stay in the coastal city of Chennai and one of my favorite pastimes is to explore the coastline that borders one side of the city. Starting from the crowded marina and Eliot’s Beach to the less crowded and secluded ones that dot the East Coast Road (or ECR as it is called), I have always found Continue reading How To Be Depressed "Depression was, indeed, the hand of a friend trying to press me down to the ground on which it was safe to stand--the ground of my own truth, my own nature with its complex mix of limits and gifts, liabilities and assets, darkness and light." Parker Palmer I've never been through pregnancy depress Continue reading Make an ass of yourself but do not let the world know... Many a time we are swept by that overwhelming feeling to bare all. Not to be mistaken with confession which is done after ensuring that there is nothing further to lose on account of reputation. I am referring to pure tear jerker stuff. Born out of righteous indignation. Or plain stupidity. The form Continue reading Time management with the monks One mile south of Georgia O'Keefe's beloved Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, thirteen miles down a cliff-hugging dirt road in the heart of Chama Canyon, you will find Christ In The Desert. The Benedictine Monastery is cloister to about twenty monks. I'd fantasized about retreating to the remote monastery Continue reading