Well, you know, we all want to change the world…

(Apologies to Lennon and McCartney)

As the year ends and another begins, it behoves me to check in with my resolutions for the year and see what progress was made.

Hang on.

Just gotta go back and look up what they were…

Oh, that’s right.

1. Decline to take photos of other people when asked

Result: Failed

It’s hard to say no when someone asks you take a photo of them standing in the snow with the Himalayas behind them. (Apology: I never posted about this trip. Life got busy and complicated and I never quite got around to it. It’s still in the pipeline so keep an eye out in the coming weeks.)

Obviously the photo I took is on their camera but here’s where we were at the time

2. Answer a question with another question to avoid talking about myself

Result: Failed

I do not possess this skill. Guess I’ll never be a politician. Sometimes failure has benefits.

3. Write all emails and messages in 25 words or less

Result: Mixed

I started out well on this resolution and was becoming quite adept at not only limiting my words to 25 words or less but managing to hit 25 words exactly on many occasions. It became something of a challenge. But some people were unhappy with my restricted words and once you make one exception, it’s hard to remember the rule as you go on. I still think it’s a worthy goal and may re-institute it for 2020.

4. Limit my consumption of American late night talk show monologues to once a week

Result: Passed

I pretty much stopped watching them altogether. Too depressing.

5. Go to the gym more regularly but not talk about it on social media

Result: Gold Star

Okay, so the actual gym attendance side gets a ‘Mixed’ result because I did drop off in the middle of the year but as I’d been diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism in May, all my exercise goals kind of took a nosedive. I did make up for it later in the year, going every day, but as it was part of getting caught in a dieting trap, that’s possibly not good either. However, I get a gold star for the social media thing. I did not post about it at all. How good is that? Okay, so it’s because I quit social media but it still counts. I ditched Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in April and have never regretted it. I wish I could say it means I spend less time on my phone but I’ve just switched to reading the news and doing brain puzzles (currently addicted to Picture Cross puzzles). I may be wasting time but at least my brain is getting a workout.

Picture Cross puzzle – Maths and Art in one puzzle!

So it would appear that my New Year Resolutions took the way of most resolutions and landed in the ‘seemed like a good idea at the time but who can be bothered’ basket.

I’m not making any resolutions for 2020. The year ahead already has enough challenges in it and I’ll be too busy navigating those to set myself up with additional goals.

A very Happy New Year to you and I wish you the bestest of all things in the year ahead.*

Have you made any resolutions for 2020 or are you just going to wing it?

* I will not be wishing you luck for the next decade. My congratulations on completing another decade will be made at the end of 2020. Honestly, when did people stop being able to count to 10??

And in case, like me, my post title put a certain earworm in your head, here’s the full song. It’s gonna be all right.