2024 Resolutions

I used to be against making New Year’s resolutions (2009). I’ve eased up on that in the last decade and have tried some other methods, such as listing out 20 specific things I want to do for a yearly task list or setting a yearly theme. Both of those worked pretty well.

This year I want to keep it simple. My two 2024 resolutions are:

Stretch every day

I’m tight, not getting any younger, and starting to get a little bit of lower back pain and a bad posture. I want to correct this and be able to keep up with Charlie as he gets faster. I don’t want to feel stiff when I get up out of a chair.

Sketch every day

I’ve wanted to learn to draw for years. I attempted it in 2017 with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, but it ended up being too involved/detailed for what I really want to do. I want to make quick Jason Polan-style sketches and simple line drawings. I want to doodle. I want to post stuff like that here to this blog, draw with Charlie at the coffee table, and make fun sketches on my chalkboard. I hope it helps me see the world in a different way, too.

Why daily?

Small daily actions add up over time. These probably won’t take more than 10-15 minutes each and I think both will have a positive impact on my life.

Progress is radical over time yet incremental in time.
Ronald Heifetz in The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

Also, it is easy to know whether I’m on track or not. It is a binary “did I do this today or not?” question rather than a nebulous one. I have the Reporter app set up to ask me about this after Charlie’s bedtime each night, which gives me enough time to do it if I haven’t yet.

So, to start it off, one of the first things I did this morning was stretch my legs in the living room with a stretching strap, then my back with a Child’s Pose and Thread the Needle pose. Charlie joined in and stretched with a resistance band. He is much more flexible than I am.

And here is my daily sketch:

This is from our walk in the woods today. I have a lot to learn.