A Single New Year’s Resolution

I have a bad track record with New Year’s resolutions. My problem is that I like to make broad, sweeping statements that affect a solid portion of my daily life. I never fail to touch the big ones: Be a better husband, get in better shape, become a better poker player, be more organized, achieve more at work. I have done some of those things, and I have not done others. These are never resolutions that are done in a day, they are constant battles that start the second I get up in the morning and continue the entire day. They require hard work and determination, something that I like to think I posses in most of the tasks I take on, but become easy to shrug off when other priorities demand attention and I take the easy out of pretending that it’s an either/or situation. ”No gym tonight, work was exhausting.” That’s a statement I like to toss off.

So this year I’ve researched – trying to find a different spin on my New Year’s resolutions. Not to avoid picking the hard ones, but trying to find a better way to wrap my head around them. I’ve poked my head around the internet to see how others would set their goals, and not been satisfied to mirror their methods.

I found my answer while I was doing my daily browse of The Huffington Post today and stumbled across the story of Joey Graziano – the son of a NYC Firefighter who went from being the first in his family to attend college to playing baseball through multiple injuries, tutoring fellow students, being responsible to his family, and winning the prestigious Mitchell Scholarship while attending Georgetown Law. Throughout the entire article, Joey’s peers and mentors laud his time management and work effort, and questioning how it was possible for him to take on his daily life and still earn a 3.9 GPA. Upon concluding the article, I was forced to sit back and ask myself the question, “Do I really know what true hard work is like?”

There are countless anecdotes from business leaders and politicians alike which beat into our brains that it isn’t always the most privileged or cerebral that achieve the most, rather those that see the road ahead of themselves and take it on head first. Being a person that always desires to be something resembling a junior polymath (and holding a job title that requires it to survive), it can be difficult to find that extra focus to go the additional step in the goals I hope to get closer to and eventually attain.

And so, knowing the multiple goals I already have for myself for 2010, I will not recite them here, or bore you with numbers related to weight gain, bankroll growth, life savings, or salaried income. Instead, I will encompass them into one driving hope-

This year, in all things I will try harder.

At the end of the year, I won’t have to make a recap post explaining the results. No matter whether I succeed or fail, it will be evident to both you and I just how well I did.