The Resolutions

Since publicly stated goals help encourage accountability, I’m documenting my goals for the year. Like everyone else, I fall into the trap of getting overly enthusiastic at the start and set unreasonable expectations. And with the way I’m wired, once I fall off the wagon of good habits, I find it hard to get back on. So, this year, I’m going to try to keep the goals realistic.

I’m a believer of the expression “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”. In the last couple of years, I’ve done a decent job of measuring exercise volume (thanks to Nike+), but not the other elements of healthy living. So, this year, my goals are basically to improve the one area I have already been measuring and start to measure other things I think will lead to overall health:

1. As previously committed, I’m setting a goal of improving my Nike+ workouts by 50% this year – from 58 to 87 runs.
2. I’m also resolving to post monthly counts of four other things that affect my overall health – physical and mental: healthy meals (currently defined as those that meet the “Michael Pollan test”), runs or other form of exercise, hours of television watched, and books completed.
3. Finally, I’m going to keep private counts for a couple things of a spiritual nature (e.g. days where I read scripture). I’m not a very public person in this regard, so I won’t be posting about it. But I want to count my progress anyway.

Of course, merely keeping track of counts of things and posting (some of) them regularly isn’t much of a chore. But, I’m obviously planning that this will be something of a trick I play on myself. If I have to come clean about how many of my meals are good, I’m hoping I’ll make better choices about what I eat. Furthermore, if I fall off the wagon for a bit, this will be easier to get back on.

That’s the theory anyway.