A Top Ten Guide to Setting New Year's Resolutions

Top Ten: Guide for Making New Year's Resolutions

10.  Reach for the stars, set your goals as high as you can dream.  If you can actually accomplish your resolutions, did you really even try?

9.   Weight loss goals seem SUPER easy.  Pick a number of pounds (pronounced "ell-bees"), sign up for a gym membership, work out for about five and a half weeks, and then stop going to the gym around mid-February.  It's apparently working for everyone else, it HAS to work for you too!

8.   Leave MONEY out of it.  Resolutions should be important and fun.  This is definitely not an arena for something as boring and lame as budgets and fiscal responsibility.

7.   If you don't HATE yourself for choosing a resolution, it's not an acceptable resolution.  The best part of this activity is being able to complain to everyone about your self-prescribed goal difficulty.  Your friends and co-workers are dying to hear your frustrations with the impossibly high standards set for yourself.

6.   Give daily, if not hourly (minute-ly if you have the twitter), updates on your bumpy, rocky path to achievement.

5.   Hate everyone else's resolutions.  They're not yours, so you shouldn't waste any effort considering those ideas.  Besides, it would be precious calories, that you're trying to lose, spent thinking about someone else's thoughts and feelings. *bleh*

4.   Make clothing, bumper stickers, and uniquely patterned ribbons to "raise awareness" about your resolutions.  If they're good enough for you, they're good enough for EVERYONE.  (see also #5, everyone else's resolutions are terrible - they need your ideas.)

3.   Create a petition and collect signatures that validate your amazingly constructed resolutions (see also #10).  When a petition gets involved, ideas and goals go NEXT LEVEL.  You have a passion for these issues, make everyone else feel your passion.  If possible, literally shove your passionate petition down their throat.  (*Before attempting #3, attain a very inclusive insurance policy and all necessary permits.)

2.   Don't be a resolution hipster.  They say, "oh, I actually don't make 'resolutions' per se.  I periodically set short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals for myself.  I write them down so that I can track my progress and celebrate my accomplishments, which then feeds my desire to achieve further goals."  OH. EM. GEE… you think you're too cool for resolution school?  You're so awesome with your bold frames separating time periods.  Why don't you just wear a screen printed cardigan proclaiming, "I try all year long."  Because you know what?  The more you DIFFERENTIATE yourself from resolution making, the more you CONFORM to goal setting.

1.   Use the same resolutions you used last year and go about achieving them in the EXACT. SAME. MANNER.  You know the old adage: if at first you don't succeed, do not alter your plan of attack, but make repeated efforts regardless of their measureable results.



Thanks for reading, post your favorite resolution rules in the comments below!