New Years’ Resolutions aren’t really my jam.

Over the years, I usually idly ponder some vague notion (usually “get in better shape“) in late December, and mostly forget about it by the second week of January or so.

This year, I’m taking things a bit more seriously. It’s time to get busy living.

Rather than get hyper-focused on just specifics, I’ve got two themes, and a few targets.

Themes:

1. Live more intentionally.
2. Get less comfortable.

Perhaps ironically for someone in my line of work, I’m not a planner. Virtually nothing in my life has gone to plan because virtually nothing in my life was actually planned. I’ve stumbled from one milestone to the next with only the vaguest sense of where I’d like to be, and while this lack-of-strategy strategy has turned out relatively successfully for me, it’s to the point where I reasonably wonder whether setting out a goal and achieving it is really something that I can do. So I’m gonna go do that for a while.

Secondly, I’m going to do more to get out of my comfort zone. After careful reflection, it turns out that it’s not, in fact, very comfortable at all. Boredom is dangerous.

As for near-term targets:

• Health and Finance: A dry January. I could count on two hands the number of drinks I had before I met my ex-wife at 27. I’m curious to see what a month without alcohol is like. So far so good.
• Health: Track my weight and other metrics. I feel like I’ve put on a ton of weight in recent years, but looking back, 2020 added about twelve pounds, and 2021 about the same. Definitely heading the wrong direction, but perhaps moving in the right direction isn’t as hard as I’ve made it out to be.
• Health: Find sustainable fitness habits. I have not been successful with fitness routines in the past, with one exception– I love to take long walks. That’s not super-pleasant throughout the year in Austin, but in Redmond, I used to do regular hour-long sessions on the treadmill while watching trashy TV (Alias, 24, etc) at the ProClub. I’ve bought a fancy treadmill and the associated subscription content to take “virtual” walks around the world. I’m gonna make this one stick, and springboard off it into other fitness things.
• Travel. Beyond my recent cruise, I’ve booked a family cruise with my kids and their cousins for late in this year– they’re all growing up too fast. Post-pandemic, I want to go to Alaska for the first time, and to Hawaii again. My long-term ambition is to get to every continent.
• Finance: Spend more intentionally. I’ve lived well below my means for over ten years, and relative frugality has served me well. But it’s also led me to avoid spending money on some things that would’ve been good for me. At the same time, I’ve bled quite a lot of money on things that aren’t good for me (alcohol, food). I’m going to try to pare those back.
• Life: Produce more. Whether it’s writing (hi!), a new side-project, or something else entirely, I’m most fulfilled when I’m making things. I want to spend more time doing that. TV is for the treadmill.

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All of these roll up into prep for a larger, longer-term goal for 2023 that I’m not ready to talk about just yet. If things go well, expect to read plenty more on that topic.

Hope y’all have a great 2022!

-Eric

Impatient optimist. Dad. Author/speaker. Created Fiddler & SlickRun. PM @ MSFT '01-'12, and '18-, presently working on Microsoft Edge. My words are my own. View more posts