New Year's resolutions 2022

Usually not making them, but last year i was annoyed when i saw careless thrown away stuff like beer bottles etc. in the forest.
I didn't go there before and wasn't aware how much trash can be left behind in areas where really none should be..and especially how it's not being taken care of.
Or at least not enuf, maybe they have someone who does but i have seen the same leftovers for months.

So i plan to clean some of that up this year. Not now in winter but come spring.
 
Goal setting
A Mindset For Motivation

Get It Done
By Ayelet Fishbach
(Little, Brown Spark, 285 pages, $29)

There’s something profound about setting goals.

From New Year’s resolutions and bucket lists to annual performance objectives and half-marathon pace targets, goals help distill our dreams and aspirations into action-oriented nuggets. At their best, they motivate us to become better versions of ourselves. The very idea of setting goals can be controversial— especially around the New Year. But the problem isn’t that we set goals; it’s that we often don’t know how to set the right ones or, once we do, how to go about achieving them.

Enter Ayelet Fishbach’s “Get It Done: Surprising Lessons From the Science of Motivation.” Ms. Fishbach is a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and an authoritative figure on the psychology of goals. Drawing on her own work and the broader social-psychology research, her book has two main objectives: to help readers set the right goals, and to offer research-based insights into how to better achieve them. According to Ms. Fishbach, an effective goal should “pull us toward our ultimate desires, energizing us to put in the work we need to do to get there.” It should be ambitious, measurable and, to the extent possible, intrinsically motivating. Suppose you want to start exercising more. To say “I’d like to run a 5k in 30 minutes or less by June” sets a more effective goal than simply saying “I’d like to start running.” An appropriate goal also takes into account our“circumstances and abilities.” As an example of “the power, at times detrimental, of holding a goal,” Ms. Fishbach points to a group of mountaineers who died while trying to scale Mount Everest. Overconfidence can further push us toward objectives that are too much of a stretch. To be effective, goals should be adjusted accordingly.

Having to juggle multiple goals can be even more challenging. The author recommends writing them out— with your broadest goals up top (“career, relationships, health and leisure”) and then drilling down to subgoals and the means of achieving them. This allows you to more clearly visualize and evaluate trade-offs, to prioritize among them and, in some cases, identify “multifinal” means that help achieve multiple goals. For instance, biking “has the potential to serve many goals—the aims to exercise more, reduce your carbon footprint, and save money.”

Of course, setting goals is just the beginning. You then need to figure out how to achieve them. One important step is to ensure you have good social support. Sharing your goals with others allows them to know you better. It holds you accountable and enables loved ones to help you succeed. “Get It Done” also looks at common barriers and gives us some tools to persist when the going gets tough. It can be helpful to “look back at what you have accomplished,” or “look ahead at what you still need to do.” One challenge is figuring out which strategy to use in different circumstances. To this end, Ms. Fishbach offers a set of questions at the end of each chapter for readers to reflect on. For example, when we find ourselves losing momentum, can we figure out if we’re able to pay attention to our “actions in the middle” of working toward a goal, and “make them memorable so they will matter?” To shorten middles, can we “set monthly, weekly, or even shorter subgoals?”

Thinking back on the role that goals played in my own life, I can see how some of these strategies helped me. When I was in my early 20s, I started running—I had moved to a new city, and it was a good way to explore the area and get some exercise. But it was a challenge to get started. So I signed up for a half-marathon (measurable and ambitious, yet still attainable). I told family and friends about it (for accountability) and started training with a couple of friends (which increased intrinsic motivation). The night before the event, we went out for Italian food (OK, it was Olive Garden and we ate the never-ending pasta bowl), which bundled the challenging race with an enjoyable pre-race activity. The race itself ended up being a fun challenge. Goal achieved, and in the years since, I’ve logged many more runs.

While carrots are good, sticks can work as well. Ms. Fishbach describes an experiment in which participants who wanted to quit smoking were able to deposit money into a bank account. Those who successfully quit would get their money back, while those who didn’t would forfeit their funds to charity. A year after the initial setup, participants were 30% to 50% more likely to pass a nicotine test. Taking this idea a step further and raising the stakes, another program proposes that you donate your lost money to an “anticharity” or otherwise support a cause that is anathema to you should you fail to reach your goal. I once bet a friend I’d win an exercise challenge. I lost, alas, and so as a Yankees fan I had to wear a Red Sox cap to Yankee Stadium. But we both got more exercise and had fun doing it.

Goals should be ambitious and measurable. Better to say ‘I’d like to run a 5k in 30 minutes by June’ than simply ‘I’d like to start running.’





Ultimately, goals are about much more than running a race or getting exercise. They are an integral part of our lives. Around the time I started running, the few life goals I had were too vague to be actionable. I didn’t know what to do, let alone how to do it. As “Get It Done” makes clear, these were potentially avoidable mistakes. Fortunately, I learned to set goals that were better aligned with my values and thatI found more intrinsically motivating (such as choosing a college major and, later, a job that I enjoy). I found ways to persist, even when things were challenging. And I was fortunate to be surrounded by friends and mentors who provided important social support.

There will always be times when it’s hard to stay motivated. In a cynical world that often says that people can’t change, Ms. Fishbach offers a message of hope. She reminds us that change is possible, gives us guidance on how to get started, and provides insight into how to set better goals and achieve them. Had I read “Get It Done” when I was a struggling student, the path to where I am now might have been a lot smoother.

Mr. Luca is the Lee J. Styslinger III associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and the co-author of “The Power of Experiments.”
 
Last year I had a vision board on the fridge with seven goals I wanted to tick off before the end of the year. I managed to get six, on a generous count. Granted, half of them were things that I needed to do anyway as I would probably not be alive if I didn't do them. While "survive" is a valid new years resolution I personally like to have something more aspirational.

I might do something similar this year, but for now my theme for the year is Do More. I say I have a lot of interests and hobbies but I just, sort of, don't do anything. So much of my free time last year was spent sleeping (at odd hours; I'm lucky if I get 6 hours of actual proper sleep on any given night) or aimlessly refreshing the same two or three websites. I managed the necessities of life but I didn't grow much as a person beyond that. I came up with a lot of rationalisations for my procrastication but in the end it is procrastination and the only way out is through. I'm not sure what I especially want out of life, but at this point just doing more things more of the time is enough of an improvement.
 
I'm thinking of trying to improve my handwriting. I've found a site online that promises to help one do so over a 30 day period.
My suggestion, if you have any community programs running, is to take a basic calligraphy course. You have to pay careful attention to things like how to hold a pen properly, and make your letters the proper height and angle. If you learn an italic hand, you'll learn the proper way to join letters to resemble modern handwriting.

I took calligraphy courses both through community programs and in the Society for Creative Anachronism. My instructor in the latter case asked if I'd consider becoming a scribe (the people who produce the large fancy scrolls given to people who are awarded various promotions in rank).

I didn't take him up on it, but did eventually produce hand-lettered feast menus.

The real bonus, though, is that my handwriting did improve from the mess it had become during my time in college when my anthropology instructor told us to "write down a few notes in the margin" of the lecture outline he'd give us in each class. By the end of the class that page was covered in notes, scribbled in tiny handwriting in a mix of English and French (sometimes it takes less room to say something in French than in English so I'd use the most convenient language at the time), and as a result of that my handwriting was ruined.

Calligraphy worked wonders for me, and I noticed this with other people's handwriting as well. And even though I went through a second time in my life when I had to retrain myself not only to write but print (combination of an accident with an automatic door at a grocery store and fibromyalgia; I literally couldn't even hold a pencil at one time, never mind do anything with it), I've gradually been improving again. My current handwriting, as long as I'm not in too much of a hurry and am paying attention, has elements of those old calligraphed letters I used to use 30 years ago in the SCA.
 
To not kill anyone intentionally, so far, so good
 
To not kill anyone intentionally, so far, so good
Every time I killed a moth or mosquito last summer, it was most definitely intentional. Lifeforms with more than 4 legs are not wanted in this building.
 
Every time I killed a moth or mosquito last summer, it was most definitely intentional. Lifeforms with more than 4 legs are not wanted in this building.
:huh: How about rats and mice? :nya:
 
Usually not making them, but last year i was annoyed when i saw careless thrown away stuff like beer bottles etc. in the forest.
I didn't go there before and wasn't aware how much trash can be left behind in areas where really none should be..and especially how it's not being taken care of.
Or at least not enuf, maybe they have someone who does but i have seen the same leftovers for months.

So i plan to clean some of that up this year. Not now in winter but come spring.

Reading this warms my heart.

You are a good human being.

:)
 
:huh: How about rats and mice? :nya:
Alberta is officially rat-free (it's commonly known here that the rats we do harbor are in human form and currently inhabit the government side of the provincial Legislature).

Mice are not welcome here unless they are attached to my computer or they're in the form of Maddy's favorite cloth cat toy.

Both rats and mice are vermin, and if any were found in the building, there would be pest control measures taken. This is also why I don't tolerate insects or spiders indoors. I don't want the pest control people in here, turning my life upside down. I already had to go through that years ago, just because I was within a 9-suite radius of someone else who had insect issues. I had to pack up the cats and my computer and move to a hotel for a couple of days because the chemicals they used were toxic to cats.
 
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