New Year's Marinations

Soooooooo, I've always been a big fan of coming up with a bunch of resolutions that I have little to no chance of completing. Every year, a couple days before New Year's Eve (some years even after New Year's Day) I sit in the shower or while I'm driving and come up with lofty goals for the year. The goals have dealt with everything from my diet, women, lifestyle, and a bunch of other random stuff. Anyway, this year I've been kind of successful with a couple of my resolutions from last year. The first was to get more fit this year. I also decided to give up beer for all of 2006 and somehow I have also stood true to that. Now! What does 2007 have in store for VLove in the form of resolutions? Well, normally I would wait until after Christmas to think about this but my friends let's change the game.

I have challenge for you people. I would like to make November a month to experiment with resolutions. For example, I am not eating meat until Thanksgiving, changing my workout and I am thinking about only drinking water and milk (and hard alcohol of course - don't worry). I call these things, New Year's Marinations. Think about it.... how good would you feel if you sat down this week and came up with a bunch of things you want to change about yourself, your life, your existence and you slowly started doing them this month. Then in December you could become even more strict with these Marinations and by the time 2007 arrives, you will already be at full speed on your New Year's Resolutions, instead of giving up things cold-turkey.

So what New Year's Marinations are you thinking about this November? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to meet a new person every week? Do you want to get better at keeping in touch with friends? Do you want to save more money and spend less? Do you want to learn a new language? Do you want to cook a new dish every week? I have a bunch of things I would love to get better at in the New Year. In an effort to get on the right track, I am going to keep track of certain things in November and December. Here are a couple examples:

1) Fitness: I would love to continue my fitness goals and for this I am going to keep track of everything I eat (in my eats log) and everytime I work out (in my get yolked log).

2) Communication: I need to get better at staying in touch with people. My goal for 2007 is to send 2 personal emails every single day. So I'm keeping track of people I email and making a list of people I haven't talked to in a while (in my holler log).

3) Productivity: A long time ago, Ramit told me to start keeping track of what I do every hour of every day. I was scared to do this because I don't do anything most of the day. Anyway, I need to get better at managing my time! (especially being more proactive Friday through Sunday) So I am keeping track of my productivity each day (in my make-it-happen log).

Anyway these are just a few examples. Other people I've talked to have brought up all sorts of great, creative goals. Resolutions having to do with reading more magazines per day, having more random conversations with random people, volunteering once a week, etc. So folks, send me some Marinations that you've been thinking about and I would love to share them on my blog (anonymously if you wish!). The more great ideas we can share now, the better the chance that we jump on board BEFORE New Year's Eve.

I guess the point here is.... don't wait until December 31, to think about this. There's a quotation that I hope sums up 2007 for me. It goes.... "tomorrow starts today, so make it happen right now." Start some New Year's Marinations now in November, grow them into Resolutions in December and bring positive change to your life even before the clock strikes midnight. The main question here is, who do you want to be? Make it happen.