It’s January 1. That time of the year when magazine covers shout “Six Weeks to a New You!”  The time when we all decide that we are going to join the gym, lose 25 pounds, quit smoking, start using the $2500 exercise machine we bought last year, be nice to our mother-in-law, pay off our debts, go back to school and achieve world peace.

By Valentine’s Day, what has happened?  For most of us, we haven’t begun to lose our holiday weight, much less the rest of it;  the gym is a distant memory; we stocked up on a couple cartons of cigarettes while traveling down I-95; we haven’t contacted any schools; and we’re still avoiding the in-laws. The only resolution we can successfully claim credit for is “use the exercise machine.” Yes, we’re using it: it conveniently stores racks of freshly laundered items.

That’s most of us, I believe. Then there are a small percentage of people who use New Year’s as an opportunity to assess their lives, who decide on a few meaningful goals or intentions and faithfully attend to them throughout the year.

What’s the difference? As someone who has no other qualifications other than I can say that over the years, I have formed resolutions I kept and ones I didn’t, as well as un-resolutions and New Years intentions–or none of the above, in certain years–these are my thoughts:

• When we don’t meet goals or keep resolutions, we don’t feel great about ourselves. So pick your goals and resolutions with care.
• Don’t use the new year as an excuse to try to co-opt yourself into doing something you know in your heart you don’t want to do. You’ll just fail and feel bad.
• Know yourself. For example, I enjoy going to the gym occasionally. I don’t enjoy going often enough to justify a membership. A New Year’s resolution to sign up at the gym would end in self-recrimination whenever I passed Bally’s without stopping or whenever I click on my bank statement to see another $60 disappear down the drain. I need an alternate way to meet my fitness objectives.
• Less is more. Who can keep track of 15 resolutions? Ok, maybe you can, and my friend Alicia Arenas apparently had 30 last year.  She can handle that, but I can’t.
• Make it broad. Yes, this goes against all conventional wisdom about SMART goals (specific, measurable, etc.)  Sometimes when I’ve had broad intentions, such as to live life more simply, I’ve been more successful than when I’ve come up with narrowly scripted results.
• Pick things related to your dreams and passions, not things you *should* do, or outcomes you *should* want.
• Wait til February to decide. Take January to consider what you want the rest of your year to be, instead of rushing in and committing to resolutions on January 1.

So, with all that said, will I have New Year’s Resolutions, un-resolutions, or intentions this year? I have two intentions or themes.

Take stock: After years of denial, I am forced to acknowledge that I am well into my mid-life, usually described as the years from 35-50. My intention is to spend the coming months soul-searching and reflecting on what I want this stage in my life to mean, as well as starting to consider and build a deeper foundation for the last third of my life.

Intentional friendships. The other day my husband and I breakfasted with  Rev. Jim, the minister who married us. I watched in amazement as my husband morphed into someone else. In the presence of his mentor, he became the best and highest version of himself. This little incident was a beautiful little reminder of the importance of surrounding ourselves with high quality people who help us meet our goals, people who cause us to be our best selves. I love all my friends and don’t plan to discard any, but I do plan to spend more time with certain especially gifted/enlightened friends and mentors.

How about you? What can you commit to this year?

photo by E. Bartholomew

This morning, I gave my son my standard morning send-off: “Have a happy day.” I’ve been saying this for almost as long as I remember.

He responded, “And may you have many hirings.” I really got a kick out of that, although that’s not the point of this post. My point is that that way we send our children into the world betrays our values.

I could say any number of other things, such as, “Be good, son,” or “Don’t cause any trouble, now,” or “Listen to the teacher and follow the rules, Read the rest of this entry »

(I originally posted this on my FaceBook Notes,’thinking it was too ‘personal’ for my blog. But after receiving enthusiastic commentary on FaceBook, I thought it was worth re-posting  here.)

What’s your desired superpower? Mine has always been flying. I often fly in my dreams and it is exhilarating.  I wish I could experience this freedom, expansive beauty and soaring escape in real life.

But today I realized I wished for a new, different power. I wish I had the power to extend my days, to increase the number of  available hours to match the number of tasks on my To Do list.

Is that sad?

 To trade the beautiful dream of flight for the satisfaction of a tidily checked-off To Do list?

Or is this the 2010 version of the age-old human desire for immortality? With the near-endless pressures of modern life,  perhaps we wish for endless days, rather than endless years or endless youth.

At any rate (for any supreme beings that might reivew my superpower request), I’d like to quickly qualify that I would not over-rely on my new power. I would only invoke it on a shortterm basis during extraordinary, busy, pressing times. Like now–when a few extra hours today would make a difference to my organization or family tomorrow. I wouldn’t abuse it, I promise, Fairy Godmother, and during ordinary times I would employ all the tried-and-true time management tips we all know and love.

 But for now, I could use a break.

I wonder: what’s your dream superpower, and what does it say about you?

photo by oddsock

Soon my family will be leaving for a two-week vacation to Costa Rica. It’s going to be amazing!

But the preparations for this amazing trip have been arduous. At home, virtually all my leisure time is spent figuring  out dog-care, cat-care, yard-care, arranging for some international students to house-sit….not to mention all the details of our travel itinerary and related finances. I Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, my nephew, Tristan, and his friend Josh embarked on an eight month trip across the continent—on skateboards– to raise awareness and money for Multiple Sclerosis. You can see his blog Long Way to Skate or find his group of the same name on Facebook.  The two young men are traveling from Virginia Beach, VA to San Diego without a support vehicle. They camp by night and haul all their gear on their backs by day.

Tristan is, what, 26, and taking off on this adventure of a lifetime!  And not just a carefree pleasure cruise but a journey involving a lot of hard work. A quest he hopes will make a difference to a cause for which he cares deeply.

I’m blown away. I’m so proud of him!

As I think about his journey, I find myself asking:

When was the last time that I did something truly amazing?

When was the last time I dove into a cause, lived it, breathed it, became it?

Have I dared to truly live my dreams, whatever those might be?

Have I taken on something magnificent–big or small–despite naysayers’ attempts to discourage me?

Am I fuly, as Tristan and Josh are?

We aren’t all going to purchase longboards and set off cross country. But that doesn’t mean the lessons don’t apply. We can contribute and give back in other ways. Including at work, those HR pros among us. How can we bring Tristan’s level of passion to what we do?

When the world asks, “What have you done for me lately?” what will you say?

My friend, Shennee Rutt and I are talking about learning Spanish in 2010.

As I think about learning another language,  memories flood my mind.  I think back to my somewhat defensive reaction when a dear friend mocked my fledgling French on a business visit to Ottawa. My feelings were hurt.   “You’ll never get better until you try,” I told him, somewhat irritated to be called on my gauche American accent.

Defensive or not, I think my reaction was spot-on.  If you don’t stick your neck out, go out on a limb, if you don’t try, you don’t get better.

In a related vein, I think of all the formulative years in which my siblings and I accompanied my parents to the tennis club where we “Hit the Ball.”

Decades later, I’m still pretty darn good at hitting the ball. I can hit the ball ad nauseum.

What I’m not good at–in fact, what I’m completely lousy at– is:   Serving. Strategy. Playing a set.  Winning a match. The real world of tennis.

In other words, somehow, I never made the transition to real life.

Similarly, I took French for much of my academic career, but at this point, I couldn’t carry on a French conversation to save my life. Too many years were spent hitting the ball en Francais, in the classroom and in the lab, instead of playing the game, being out in the real world conversing with French-speaking folk.

And now, as I think about learning Spanish, I think about playing the game versus hitting the ball. Living as I do just outside of DC, I am surrounded by diversity; ethnic establisments including Salvadoran and Tex-Mex (and many more) abound. So tonight I went out to get a margarita. I ordered pupusus sin carne, con queso y frijoles. When I got my food,  I said:  Muchas gracias. And hey, when I finished my margarita, I said: Una mas, por favor!

I stumbled, it felt muy awkward. I made mistakes. But I went outside my comfort zone and did it anyway. I decided that if I don’t try, if I don’t risk, I won’t learn. It’s that simple. Some of what I said was wrong, ungrammatical, incorrect. If you are a Spanish whiz and you pick up on this, I urge you to keep your critiques to yourself. The point was that I put myself out there and I tried.

The lessons go far beyond learning a new lingua.  When we  learn new skills (whether a new software, new  job, application, industry, niche, etc.), we are essentially learning a new language. If we stay academic, in our heads, in the lab, we are at a disadvantage. At some point–and probably sooner rather than later–we need to jump in, branch out, and put our budding skills to the test in a practical way.

In the real world. Isn’t that what matters?

What new language will you learn and try and practice in 2010?

Image by Don Hankins

How’s 2010 treating you so far?  Good, I hope!

A few years ago, a friend’s offhand comment made me think. “I hate it when people leave their Christmas lights up all year. It’s my pet peeve.” Never having thought about being irked by this particular aspect of life, I started to pay more attention to the phenomena of quirky irritations.

What is a pet peeve? Before I consult Webster, let me take a stab at my own definition. It seems that when we admit to having a pet peeve, we are essentially saying: “I have this special thing that bothers me.” Something that doesn’t seem to annoy others but bugs the heck out of me.

Checking myself here, Merriam-Webster online defines the term as ”a frequent subject of complaint.” But whether it’s a special thing that bothers me or a frequent subject of complaint, tell me, do we really want either? To be peeved is to be offended or irritated. And when we add “pet” it seems like we are cultivating the irritation, making it ours, expanding the opportunities to be offended and attracting more of the same.

Lest you think I am being holier-than-thou, let me share  my own: when the person ahead of me rolls their cart into the grocery store entryway, only to come to an sudden and protracted stop so that I have to swerve into the citrus display to avoid a  rear-end collision while a growing clump of shoppers congeals in the traffic jam behind me. Argh, I’ve tried to abandon this pet peeve, and I’m not there yet.

If you have a pet peeve, what is it? And more importantly, could you consider putting it aside, leaving it behind?  Could you give it up for New Years, for Lent, for your own greater sense of peace?

photo  Morgan Wise

This year, the HR Twitterverse enjoyed an awesome unconference, HRevolution,  brainchild of Trish McFarlane and  Ben Eubanks.  On his blog, Ben called an unconference “basically a conference with much less formality and structure.”

It’s the time of the year when people traditionally start thinking about New Year’s resolutions.  We’re all acquainted with the short but passionate lives of  many resolutions: what was started with such enthusiasm on January 1 is forgotten weeks later.  Moving into 2010, I’ve decided to have unresolutions.  I’ve come across a few other people doing unresolutions, like Nancy Shanteau or Stephen Shapiro and others,  each with their own unique spin.

My unresolutions will simply be resolutions with “much less formality and structure. ” Some might call them intentions, since it appears that intentions are the new resolutions in the world of goal setting.

My unresolution for this year is to make the absolute best use of a three month paid sabbatical (woot!) I have coming to me. My time off can be used in increments of two weeks, so the sky is the limit! I will travel to exciting places. I will read, I will relax, I will write. I will visit family. I will save time for myself and regardless of my activities, I will savor every minute of the wonderful gift of time.

In addition, though it might sound like I’m working at cross purposes, I am also currently doing some pretty in-depth personal strategic planning.  I will set actual goals (not un-goals) for myself, but to maximize chances of success, they won’t be tied to the calendar year. You’ll be hearing more as the process unfolds.

But for now, what about you? What (un)resolutions, (un)goals or (un)intentions do you have for 2010?

Image credit:  Virginia Zuluaga