HA! I love coining new phrases and I am the official coiner of this one! Have a look!
There are a lot of articles/posts out there which mention “reverse resolutions” and have their own definitions for them. Most of which involve looking back on the accomplishments of this year instead of making goals for the following year. Mine is similar but more of a hybrid of traditional and, what seems to be a generally agreed upon, reverse.
Here are the official, throughout the universes, multiverses and reversiverses, rules for “New Year’s Reverse Resolutions”:
- Privately make resolutions for the next year.
- Work on said resolutions throughout the year.
- Publically reflect on the progress of last year’s resolutions.
- Go back to #1.
- ???
- PROFIT!
This came to me while taking the MRT (Subway for you non-Taiwanesians) home after yoga while thinking to myself “New Year’s resolutions are so stupid. It’s just an arbitrary date* with no objective meaning.” Then I went on to think “As you well know you live in a subjective universe and the global collective consciousness gives it meaning.”
I happened to get a photo of myself on the MRT close to the time this thought transpired. The face and the thought are in no way connected.
After my internal rant about how the arbitrariness of practically all facets of the human race, especially holidays**, get cloaked as being completely rational and reasonable (they most certainly are not!) I put some thought into figuring out how to leverage the New Year and the resolutions which oft come with it.
What I’ve noticed from personal experience and what oft preached percentages*** say is that New Year’s resolutions rarely create the change you seek in the world. Even when “unsuccessful”**** they could produce good data to be learned from.
So, the basic idea is creating a 100% success rate by removing the achievement of said goals from the equation and making the goal to enjoy and learn from the process of trying to achieve or achieving said goals.
Boom. *Anna voice*
I already made my resolutions and shot a video for 2017. Excitements!
Now time to get on the one man New Year’s Eve party bus!
* It’s far from arbitrary! I tried looking into the history of the first of the year and my head exploded.
** Holidays always make me grumpy.
*** I always see things like “Only 8% of people are successful at…” Looks like that number comes from [here] or there abouts.
**** It’s only unsuccessful if nothing is learned. I also unsuccessfully made enough footnotes to officially use a † which would have been [the next mark in the sequence].
Casey's Journal 
Once a year, it’s a good idea to reflect on your accomplishments of the past year, see how they match up with the goals of the past year, and set goals for the new year. Organizations do it, too. It helps an organization reflect on their mission and are they making progress toward their mission, do they need a new mission statement to more accurately reflect what they are doing, or do they need to change what they are doing. It can work for individuals, too. The beginning of a new year is a good time to do this, but you could pick any date and any month to start your year. Hope 2017 is a good year for you.
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I’ve long been a fan of any date, but it’s hard to argue that there isn’t utility in using the first of the year. It works well with the collective story. I used to do goals for the week/month. I think going back to weekly goals wouldn’t be a bad idea. It’s nice doing week to week reflections.
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[…] had the idea of doing “New Year’s Reverse Resolutions” last New Year’s Eve and this will be the first one! “New Year’s Reverse Resolutions” create a 100% success rate […]
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