New Year’s Resolutions

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, mainly because I can rarely think of something worthwhile to aim for that I’m not already working on, but also because I doubt I’ll stick to the goals I set. This year I’ve decided to give it a go though, so here are my resolutions/goals for 2006:

Have at least one article published in a paper magazine – Although I’ve never talked about it much, one of my dreams has always been to be able to write for a living. The practical side of me realises that not many people are good enough to build their entire career around writing, but I would like to try my hand at writing a few articles as a freelancer and getting them published. In my dream world I’d be accepted for The Economist or The Guardian, but even getting something into the Manchester Evening News would feel like a huge achievement.

Be less cynical/defensive – Looking back at some of my posts on UA, Rogue Students and LiveJournal, I’ve realised how terribly cynical and defensive I’ve become. I don’t know exactly why it is, although I suspect it’s just a desire not to get hurt.

Take more risks (or at least be willing to) – This is along the same lines as the “less cynicism” resolution, although it’s come about more because of times this year when perhaps I should have reached out and taken a chance instead of playing it safe. Being too cautious has meant I’ve not done anything this year that I’ve really regretted, but I think that it’s probably lost me some opportunities as well.

Get my head down and work hard in the final year – So far in my degree I’ve managed to get reasonable marks by a combination of some hard work (but not as much as I should have put in), modules that were too easy (such as the two Java modules in the first year, and the C one in the second year) and a bit of luck. Given how much the third year counts towards my degree though, I can’t rely on luck and easy work to propel me past the finishing post. I really want to get a first in my degree, and the only way to do that is to knuckle down and get some serious work done.

Learn how and when to say “no” – Another thing that I really noticed this year is how ridiculously easy I am to guilt trip and how difficult I find it to say “no” to people when they ask me to do something. I guess it’s not a bad thing in general, but it’s sometimes lead to me getting really stressed because I’ve taken too much on or have kept doing something I don’t really enjoy because I couldn’t find the nerve to throw in the towel.

Learn how to cook more things – I always used to be reasonably good at cooking when we did food technology at high school (before then I never realised how good homemade lasagne tastes), but I haven’t really practised my culinary skills much since coming to university. Part of the reason was having to share a kitchen in the first year (it’s much harder to cook when there’s three or four other people trying to use the same oven/hob/work surface) and also getting home only to realise that I didn’t really have time to do anything more than shove some frozen chicken pieces and chips into the oven before having to go out again. Now that I’m on my own and don’t have to worry about hogging the kitchen, it’s probably time that I picked up the habit of cooking things from scratch rather than attempting to live off anything that can be thrown into a microwave for five minutes.

Finish working on some of the site ideas I have – I’m terrible for starting work on a site idea that I have and then never quite getting round to finishing it. I’ve got a bit better recently and have managed to keep sites like Data Circle running and updated, but I really need to put aside some time after my final exams to get on with building the sites I have in mind for the thirty or more domains I own.

I’m sure there’s a few other things that I could think of, but those six are probably enough to concentrate on this year. If you can think of any others I should have added to the list, feel free to add them in the comments. 😉