Published Jan 2, 2007

It’s an annual tradition, at this point, to make my New Year’s resolutions public and review how I did on the previous year (see: 2004, 2005, 2006). I’m all for tradition, so here goes the resolutions for 2007.

Last Year’s Resolutions Reviewed

  1. Travel travel travel
    Boy did I!
  2. Learn a new language (or actually make my Portuguese useful)
    I learned a bit of Thai.1 Now I’m learning a bit of Ruby. It’s a start, but it’s not great.
  3. Start swimming
    Started, swam well, then lost it after I graduated. Still, a good effort.
  4. Start a second, tightly-focused, well-edited blog to complement this amorphous, occasionally well-written, occasionally abysmally-written site
    See WadeArmstrong.com
  5. Lose 7 lbs
    Actually, lost 25!
  6. Try to find a new martial arts studio, so I can get back into that hobby
    Nope.
  7. NaNoWriMo
    Decided to start a company instead. Unfortunately, time is a zero-sum thing so there was no free time for a novel. I’m sure I have at least one in me, though, so I’d like to try again later.
  8. Do something with the restaurant club, or some other collective eating project
    Nope.
  9. Network!
    Did ok, actually! At least kept in touch with most of the people I knew, and have added a half-dozen other good, solid contacts.

That’s not bad — made at least some progress on 6 out of 9, and totally nailed 4.

This Year’s Resolutions

Can I do it again this year? Well, here are the challenges I’m giving myself:

  1. Find a networking group to go to, like I used to go to Ryze events
  2. Join a local Toastmasters club
  3. Keep up with people I met in school
  4. Join a martial arts studio, probably either Jiu Jitsu2, Aikido, or Krav Maga3
  5. Say “no” more often
  6. Keep my plants alive
  7. Get into a habit of regularly reading and outlining business books.
  8. Start keeping my finances in some kind of program again — I ditched Quicken two and a half years ago, as it was corrupting my accounts all the time, but I think it’s time to start keeping records again.

Seems like my list of resolutions gets shorter every year! I think the appropriate marketing spin for that is “I’m getting better at prioritizing.”

1 Pom put thai dai nit noy krop

2 If I can find one that teaches Jiu Jitsu as a martial art, rather than as a sport

3 If I can figure out a way to make it through the first level cattle-call course quick, and progress on to a more interesting class