Resolutions and Reasons

Well a slightly belated Happy New Year to you! I hope you all indulged in sufficient merriment over the festive period. Now it's January. It's cold, wet, the middle of winter, none of us have any money because we bought presents and then spent all our Christmas money before New Year's Eve, radio DJs never seem to shut up about it being New Year and you've probably already failed to go jogging. Fun!

You're probably the same, but I've had an extremely mixed relationship with New Year's Resolutions. One year I'm for, the next I'm against. There's that constant battle between a scepticism of the concept in general, your own laziness and human inclination to fail, and your optimism, your hope, your determination. You know that, physically, you CAN do whatever it is you'd like to, so why don't you? It's odd.

This year, I've been continually toying with the idea. I wasn't sure where my sword was going to fall on the proverbial battle ground this year. Then I read a blog by a guy called Michael Hyatt. I follow him on Twitter, and he's the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, a Christian publishing company in the US. He is probably the best blogger I read. He is the master of crafting blog posts. They're frequent, succinct and to the point. Definitely follow him if you're into that sort of thing.

He wrote a post called "How To Make New Year's Resolutions Stick". If you want help keeping yours, read it. It's what persuaded me to make some resolutions this year and to treat them in the way I am.

Basically, he says you need to:
1. Make them specific, not generalised sentiments
2. Keep them few in number
3. Keep them SMART (see the blog post for the meaning of the acronym)
4. Write them down
4. Go public

Well, that's what I'm doing. I've made 5. Some are quite personal and just a bit irrelevant to this post right now but one is ALL about these posts.

MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION FOR 2011:
Write at least 2 blog posts a week between Monday 3rd of January 2011 and 31st December 2011.

There it is. It's out there. It's written down. And if you are a faithful reader of my blog I'd like you to pull me up on it (if you remember...) Since I started focussing specifically on music in this blog back in early October, I've pretty much averaged that, so I'm now making a strong point of it, determining myself.

At the start of a New Year, I'd also like to reassert the purpose of this blog, remind you (and myself) of why I write it.

1. It's cathartic. Writing this blog is, I guess, something I do because I want to vent my thoughts. Get them into a place where they're in front of me, manageable and subject to review.

2. To share with you. Yes you. As well as wanting to get my thoughts out for my own sake, I want to share them with other like minded or perhaps not so like minded people. I find it difficult sometimes to either find people who think and talk about music like I do, or to make enough time to talk to people who DO think and talk about it like I do. I really do hope that my thoughts on music and the music that I share/post enriches you in a very real, sincere way.

3. To practice. Practice may be the wrong word, but I want to be a music journalist. And I want to be as good at writing about music as possible, and to make myself as employable as possible one day - hopefully to a music publication that I love and respect. Writing this blog - and perhaps more importantly, writing it in a disciplined manner - will hopefully help me along my way.

So I hope that you do have a very happy 2011. A 2011 full of blessings and growth. Not necessarily happiness. I saw philosopher called Peter Vardy speak last year (woah, 2010 is now LAST YEAR!) who made a very vocal point of stating that the purpose of life is not for you to be comfy, content and happy. But I hope that in 365 days time, you will be more enriched and hopefully closer to God than you are now. God bless you this year, and may your resolutions be resolute.