Have you ever made a life altering “New Year’s Resolution” that has actually stuck?

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1. New Year’s Eve, 11:45PM, Los Angeles, CA, 2013, back yard of my friend’s party, bumming a Camel off someone I’d just met.

   “This is gonna be my last cigarette”

   Next year will be ten years. Still true, so far.

2. I resolved in my early teens to never again make a New Year’s resolution. It’s the only one I ever kept. If you’re going to do something, why put it off until the new year? Might as well start now if you mean it.

3. I decided to try being vegetarian for a year almost 6 years ago. No real reason why, just to challenge myself.

   Still going strong (minus the time I found out that the yellow rice packages I had been eating for quick dinners had chicken broth in them).

4. I’ve never really done a new years resolution, if I want to make a change in my life I just go for it then and there. Well, that or I put it off indefinitely, but in any case I don’t wait for meaningful dates to get started.

5. To quit smoking. But I decided to start early as i woke up on Dec 26th, 2003 said, why am I waiting until new years day? Had about 2.5 cigarettes that day and quit cold turkey after 12 years of about a pack a day.

6. On December 3, 2011 I made a New Year’s resolution to find out what was happening to my daughter and she was so sick. On august 5, 2012 my daughter was diagnosed with a rare terminal illness. No treatment no cure.

7. Yeah, last year actually. Decided I was no longer going to wait for friends or my wife to do things that I want. I’ve grown to be so dependent on others for such things that I forgot that I used to do things solo, even stuff I’ve never done before. So I told myself that I need to finally just start doing new things, regardless of whether with friends or not.

   Since then, I’ve been camping (including nude camping which was a pleasant surprise), backpacking (though without camping), hiking, walked 10 miles, bought roller skates (it’s too cold to actually go skating 🥶), etc.

   Next year, I want to continue this trend for myself by backpacking overnight, camping in another state, hiking to another state, learning to skate properly, maybe try kayaking and do more rock climbing. Doing these with or without friends too.

   It’s a fun process, though still a little out there, but I’m glad for the new experiences.

8. Gave up drinking soda and other sugary beverages. I ended up losing 20 lbs that year and have kept the weight off ever since. I let myself cheat time to time if I am out for lunch, or at a friends place, but I dont buy it at the supermarket anymore, and I dont drink it every day anymore. I still drink hot chocolate too but I make it myself because I dont like it with that much sugar anyway

9. I’ve never made a New Year’s Resolution tbh. It’s usually too cold for me to want to do much so I just get a good nights sleep if I don’t have a midnight bowl packed

10. Yes, but typically it works best for me if it is a single action and not a habit-changer. Like, “I am going to finally have a will written and add beneficiaries to my 401K”. That’s something I can knock out in a few steps.

    One year, I quit Starbucks (and any competing coffee shops). That might have been a resolution. I found I didn’t save that much so I went back to it the next year.

11. Kinda-ish. This most recent year I told myself that I wanted to change my relationship with alcohol. Through covid and tough economic times, I found myself drinking too much. This year alone, I did dry January and February, and then recently completed a dry August – November. I’m drinking again – just not daily and not overindulging. Also, my goal to do “dry months” has really let me know that I DO have the capability to change my relationship with alcohol. I’m still trying to figure out my own personal guardrails and, who knows – that might mean that this next resolution is that I don’t drink for the entire year. I don’t really know yet – I’m trying to navigate that. I never thought I could do more than a week and I have proven myself to be stronger than I anticipated on two separate “extended time windows” twice this year already!!

12. Last Jan I quit drinking pop. I haven’t had one in almost a year.

13. The closest I came was about 4 years ago when I said I’m gonna start going to the gym regularly, and then I did that for the next 2 years. 3 times a week and eventually got to(only once) an under 20 minute 5k.

    But then covid closed the gyms down, and I haven’t got the motivation to go back.

14. Nope but I did have a Covid lockdown resolution to lose weight and I’m now down 100lbs and living a much healthier lifestyle

15. Nope still broke

16. I decided to go vegan on New Year’s 2004. Coming up on 19 years and still going strong.

17. In 2018 I said I would limited earring take out food to twice a month. Crazy how much money I ended up saving.

18. It was actually a Jan. 6th resolution. I stopped watching any TV news and only glance at newspaper headlines. I had been a bit a news junkie but the attack on the Capitol was it. I never thought it would happen, but I don’t miss it.

19. I said 2022 was gonna be a big year. At the time, we didn’t know my wife was pregnant, but it’s been a big year

20. Yea

21. I decided to start reading again in 2015.

    Before this, I hadn’t read a book in years. I used to read constantly when I was younger, but then I was put on a medicine that messed up my attention span and even after I stopped the medicine, I couldn’t read for more than a couple minutes at a time so I couldn’t finish a book.

    In 2014, I only read one book, so my resolution for 2015 was just to read more than that. I read 10 that year.

    I read 15 the next year (2016), 27 the year after that (2017), and since then I’ve read at least 52 a year (except I’m at 49 so far for 2022)!

    I’ve officially made myself a reader again through that one New Year’s resolution.

22. Quit coffee & all caffeine last year. I had a serious problem with it. I still love the smell but I know I’ll never drink it again. I feel so much better

23. I made the choice to quit smoking on December 20something 2021 and I’ll be reaching a year cigarette-free sometime this month! I didn’t actually mark the exact date, but sometime this month.

24. For this year it was get out and do stuff. I’ve spent too much time waiting on such and such, while this year I went with a “damn the torpedoes” attitude and went ahead with a whole laundry list of things I’d been putting off. As a result, this year I took two spectacular vacations, found a ton of amazing restaurants, started volunteering at a place that lines up well with my interests, and got to know Chicago a whole lot better. Because I stopped waiting to do stuff and just went ahead and did it, I would consider 2022 to be an outstanding year for me, and I already am getting things lined up for next year.

25. Yes. January 7, 2023 will mark 10 years since I sent that abusive sack of crap packing. I just sort of woke up in 2013 and knew I wasn’t taking his crap anymore. It took me a few more months to figure out a safe exit, but i knew I was done as a New Years Resolution.

26. I made a new years resolution about 20 years ago to stop making New Year’s resolutions

27. A couple of years ago I made a resolution to lose weight. I went out and lost 90 pounds.

28. No. Treating something as a new years resolution just means to me that it’s not going to be taken seriously enough to be kept to. If you really value a change enough to stick to it then you wouldn’t put off starting it until an arbitrary date.