Log off 2023, restart, log in 2024!

Log off 2023, restart, log in 2024!

For a few of us imperfect humans, it is time to make the promise of turning a new leaf, to plan, and to intend eventually to look at improved versions of ourselves when we look at the mirror 366 days later.

Whether it has been a long time wish which we have forever wanted to make true or an ambition that we strive to turn into reality, the new year resolution-implementation works in two ways- jump right in on the 1st day of the new year or progress in a phased, planned manner each day for 365 days.

My experience says the first generally applies to giving up or beginning something e.g., resign from your job to prevent sacking or foolishly resolve to give up nicotine/caffeine/alcohol/impulsive buying/stress eating/saying yes under social or emotional pressure/watching You tube videos endlessly/sleeping in till late.

In a phased manner one could choose to eat/live healthy, work harder, follow passions/hobbies, learn a new skill/language over the next year. One also follows this for taking vino game a groove above or ignoring family requests, till they become an inborn habit. Working for a perfect aim to break the TV screen through the windowpane in a neighbour’s house whose TV blasts the whole day/being as chivalrous to your own wife as you are to others’/bagging the constant worrier trophy, also fall in this category.

Some goals can, however, offer you a choice in this respect. Let me make it clearer with a simple example. If the wish has been to smother your partner to death, one can either do it with a pillow one night or in a phased manner, poison him/her to the ultimate liberation of both. Now this is a discipline I cannot claim any expertise in, so please check with an expert in the law of our land before you exercise your choice - life or life term.

Over years I have oscillated between two-point resolution and a 50- resolutions list to be fulfilled in a year and been equally unsuccessful in achieving my goals.

Every year I either choose a particular field in my colourless personality to improve upon or a few in physical and mental health, attitude or lifestyle. I have mostly ignored focusing on my financial situation for whatever can an almost jobless person do to offer bank authorities to play with?

People who have reached the summit of success in this field have given me advice, mostly unsolicited though, on the why and whynots. In moments of extreme helplessness, I have followed those I liked, seemed sane/easy and am pleased to announce, failed equally in all. 

From years of the precious experience I have accumulated in this field, I share the pointers to be followed.

‘Specific and measurable’, is what the steps should be, I was informed. Big steps demotivate and overwhelm.

Taking nano steps in this direction each day has now made me an expert of unsurpassable and incomparable excellence on how best to further sub-divide resolutions or totally ignore them.

Share it with family and friends to rope in their help and support.

When I told the family e.g., that I promised to be more tactful and less blunt, Haan, haan, theek hai, theek hai, dekh lenge (Yes, yes, ok, ok, we’ll see) was the peak of their enthusiasm.

The friends merely nodded and gave me sympathetic looks. Some changed their hello/hi to “Say again, what is the resolution this year?”

To give all of them credit, they did make it a habit to question me accusingly when I was found breaking the promise.

Strategize- I made stepwise plans, gave them headings and sub-headings - first, second and so on steps, first, second and so on phases, last chance, last resort and of course, fall back.

I devoted several weeks a year to my planning missions. If during implementation, I got confused about what step was I at, I began from the beginning/picked up from wherever I thought I was/slid it away to pursue whatever was weighing on mind that moment.

Some suggested that I leave room for imperfection.

Killing my Virgoan streak for perfectionism, I left not room, but vast space for lapses and trudged on bravely. Had I measured this total distance in steps towards the moon, I would have landed there way before you clapped at the Chandrayaan III touching the surface of that celestial sphere.

The whole exercise is to be put in black and white, so that one can check, and tick off what has been achieved.

I designated a cupboard for self-improvement and stacked up writing pads/note books/diaries on which I had written elaborate plans for fulfilling my resolutions. There were lists, tables, charts, points in blue, black and red ink, to make them easily identifiable and I nearly memorized them so that I could mumble them in sleep. To raise them to robotic level, I might move to their excel sheet versions soon.

A tiny percentage of achievers were all for rewarding myself for any progress that  I made in the process.

Every micro step that I took right, I patted my back. After I got a permanent dent in my back from all that patting, I changed to giving myself rewards of other kinds. Perhaps now I should apply for a patent for my very own reward programme in this department.

My understanding is that if even after all this humungous effort I have not succeeded in being a ‘better’ person, then the universe prefers me as I am and does not want me to change.

Yet 2024 is here and once again I have been big on setting the bar for myself. I am sharing the resolutions with you in case you are running short.

Physical health

• Avoid food waste by eating/drinking the whole packet/bowl/bottle of whatever I picked up, in one sitting.
• Only eat junk when there is an A/E/Y in the month.
• Invent an anti-gravity machine to lose weight.
• Enter as pest in my contacts list, the phone number of everyone who shares unsolicited diet or exercise regimen.
• Dig out the secret to Meryl Streep/Paul Rudd’s eternal youth and follow the regimen.

Mental health

• Reply with a “no comment” when people ask personal questions.
• Do not open the Whatsapp profile of any toxic person.
• Limit myself to one minute for choosing a Netflix movie. If it is good, great, otherwise, the one minute rule applies.
• Read more, I should click the subtitles on during romcom binge-watching.
• Before others, refuse to accept that 2024 has started.

Social responsibility

• Answer happy Sunday/Monday/ Navratris/Hanumanji’s Birthday/Teej/Karva Chauth Whastapp message with a Why?
• File my tax return afresh after adding pet crows and money plants as dependents.
• Make ‘think outside the calendar’ my catchphrase.
• Punctuate all conversation with business jargon because resolutions can be game-changers. My core competency in preparing their implementation plans is impactful, empowering.

Meanwhile, I continue to be flexible about the inclusion of one of my old resolutions i.e., the research paper on Formulation of New Year Resolutions for the Common Indian Woman. I have supreme confidence that top universities would include my statement of belief in their syllabus for degree courses in management. It would include both lock, stock and barrel (jump in) as well as slow poisoning (phased) strategies.

I shall not disturb you before January 13 now so that you have ample time to formulate your own new year resolutions. I wish you all the success; yet in case of any roadblocks, I, the self-claimed specialist, am happy to help.

                                                                                       -Anupama S Mani