New Years Resolution

     New Year Resolutions are funny things. When New Year’s Day looms in the near future, I always take a minutes to look back and think about what I could or should have done with my time in the past year. Most of the time I see a large allotment allocated to Netflix, video games, and other forms of procrastination. In comparison, there is a pitiful amount of time dedicated to writing, or, really anything of import. School, sleep, and procrastination station take of the majority of my time, and that’s stayed the same for quite a few years now. Not because I do not make resolutions with the idea of change in mind. No, I do that all the time, even when it is not a new year. Sometimes I even hang onto those resolutions for a few weeks, I even made it to a month once, but I always give up. I have never had the willpower to follow through.
     So this year I want to try a different sort of resolution. I am not going to get a six pack of abs by April. I am not going to resolve to stop watching Netflix cold turkey. Nor will I purge myself from every bad habit that I have within the next few months. However, I will resolve to do better with small, specific goals. I will resolve to write four days of the week, at least. I will resolve to eat more salad and less fried food. I will try to make my life better.
     This is different from previous years because I was imagining a perfect life and trying to achieve that within a short time. Now I see that, while not impossible, that was an unlikely goal. But I can work to improve gradually, something that my naturally lazy inclination can wrap itself around. I failed in past years because my goals were too large and unrealistic. What I can do are little things that gradually build up to the life I want. I can write four days out of the week. No limit, no minimum, simply something on paper. When I get that down and rolling, then I can begin to go further. I can begin to write every day of the week, and then set word minimums for each day, specific times to write, and plenty of other things to make sure that my writing stays at the forefront of my concerns.
     This kick in the pants has been a long time coming, and it is something that I greatly needed and desired. Self-motivation is one of my greatest weaknesses. It has plagued me for many years, but this year will be the end of it. Or, at least, the beginning of the end.