Oh no, not another New Year resolution article!

New Year Resolution

The year is almost over and since weeks you can read or watch reviews of the year’s events and you find  lots of articles, like the one from CNN or Forbes,  with tips and advise “How to achieve your goals in 2014”. You even find books about New Years resolutions which promise you not to fail.

So why should I write about New Years Resolution when the market is already glutted and according to the author S. J. Scott of the “Resolutions that stick! How 12 habits can transform your New Year” 9 out of 10 people fail to achieve their goals. Who am I, presuming that I can advise anybody. No, I don’t presume anything –  this post is designed as a personal review and preview for 2014.

Image by bykst via Pixabay

Actually, I gave up on New Years resolution quite a couple of years ago. Probably I belonged to the 9 out of 10 who did not achieve their resolutions and gave up, probably because I find it ridiculous to make resolutions at a time for a whole year or I already achieved all my goals 😉

Looking back

Approaching the 50 I have definitely achieved some goals. Originally I am a trained home economist. Yet, my first job was in a hotel as a assistant  housekeeper for a year, before switching back to my original profession. I also worked in a boarding schools for adolescents with special needs as instructor and home economist, responsible for all economist concerns of the whole school. Out of an instructor became a vocational teacher for home economy. Since that I acquired 3 different teaching licences, including special education, computer science and nursing, including geriatric nursing since this school year. Alongside my teacher job I acquired a BA in Health and my MAODE (Master of Online and Distance Education) degree with the Open University. This blog was originally my study blog and developed into my personal “diary” reporting about all kind of e-learning topics, including MOOCs and more.

Well, one might say, that I got somewhere, but there are so many new and interesting things to explore and/or bad habits to change, thus there is always room for new resolutions and goals.

My personal resolutions

Ok, what do I want to achieve next year, what are my resolutions for 2014?

I found in my calendar today a good quote.

All resolution are already made, we just have to apply them. ~Vernacular

Indeed, my resolutions sound pretty commonplace. To work out on a more regular basis, to learn a new language, to be more creative and become a DIY’er and so on. One wish would be to give e-learning a greater emphasis in my life, but so far teaching and e-learning are not really compatible, at least not on my school. So just ordinary resolutions that I need to put into action, keep track of it and not abandon them. Sounds easy, but you remember that most people dropout and are back to normal already after a couple of weeks.

How not to become a dropout

Making resolutions are one thing, but keeping them is a different matter. Here the bottom line derived from own common sense, several articles and the book I talked about in the beginning of the article that I finally bought, because I found the sample quite convincing.

• don’t go overboard with your resolutions, i.e. make them achievable and
• don’t make to many resolutions at a time
• be realistic with what you want to achieve
• your resolutions should be well-considered and planned, not made five minutes before midnight
• don’t be to vague, but precise what you want to achieve and break it down
• you truly want to achieve this goal, don’t make a resolution to please somebody else
• Involve family and friends to support you achieving your goals
• …

I am sure you know most of these tips and could probably add some more, but the year is almost over and I have to come to an end 😉

It only remains for me wishing you a  Happy New Year and that you may be successful in achieving the resolutions you made for 2014.

Image from Gerd Altmann via Pixabay