When deciding on this year’s New Year’s resolution, I discarded several for a variety of reasons. Among them were the following:
Set a new personal best in golf.
I may have excluded this from my list simply because I’m afraid it is not possible. My lowest score for nine holes is a 46, and my lowest score for 18 holes is 95. Without lessons or a dramatic increase in playing time, I don’t see myself improving these scores without an enormous amount of luck.
Launch a podcast related to teaching.
I already plan on launching a podcast related to writing in 2013, so my idea of bringing three teachers (my wife, my friend, and me) together to discuss education and answer questions from parents, students, and fellow teachers might turn out to be fairly simple once I learn about the process, but it may not. Even if I manage to streamline the technical aspects, it will still take time to record. As a result, I thought that one podcast this year would be more than enough. If the second one gets off the ground, it will be a bonus.
Deliver a TED Talk.
While I still want to deliver a TED Talk in 2013, the amount of content I already plan to produce is so large that I felt I had to leave some ideas off the list. A TED Talk was one of them.
Write and perform a 5-10 minute stand-up comedy set in 2013.
I would like to attempt stand-up comedy someday, but once again, the amount of writing, storytelling, and podcasting that I have planned for 2013 is already more than enough.
Launch a proposed business venture with a close friend.
A friend and I have a possible business idea on the drawing board that we hope to launch in 2013, and we are already in discussions about it, but it may take more than a year to accomplish, so I have left it off the list for now.
Read a specific number of books in 2013.
Readers suggest this resolution to me every year. Three years ago, I set a goal of reading a dozen books published within the same calendar year (and achieved it fairly easily), but I set it to force myself to read more current material.
My attitude towards overall reading has always remained the same:
Read as often as possible in 2013. The number of books doesn’t matter if I am reading as much as I can. Therefore, no resolution is needed.
Make one mortgage payment from poker profits.
I paid for our honeymoon with poker profits, and I’ve always wanted to make at least one mortgage payment through poker, but the amount of playing I do today is limited by my writing schedule. Also, the online poker environment became decidedly more challenging with the US restrictions on online gambling in 2010. While I’m fairly certain I could earn enough money through poker to cover at least one mortgage payment if I dedicated time to it, writing is simply more profitable.
