Happy 2016!! A time for resolutions and reflections, a time to set goals and take pride in your accomplishments, and most importantly…start doing all the things you told yourself you would start doing the year before. There is a lot of pressure around this holiday to make changes in your life, lose the weight, get the job, buy the house, kiss your soul-mate at midnight. So, I’ve made the bold decision to ask nothing of myself but to jump into 2016 with no expectations of what I’ll be doing for the next 365 days.
So to anyone who may decide to do my spin-off of a resolution, I have some things you should expect when you’re not expecting anything…
1. Being pleasantly surprised. With no expectations, things going as well or bad as they normally do will be great! You normally eat pizza at least once a week and you continue eating pizza once a week, things are fine! You keep the job you have whether you love it or not, maybe minimum wage goes up and you’re making around the same amount of money you always have made. Things being average is totally fine! Sometimes we don’t need big monumental life events to make a good year.
2. You save money. A lot of resolutions require some capital. Joining a gym, eating better, going out more, buying the boat, revamping your wardrobe. With no investment plans on the horizon, you can hold onto that hard earned cash – after taxes of course. You can decide to splurge on new furniture for your bedroom or the Michael Kors bag, or you can continue to save every penny for no reason other than to be able to put gas in your car, to get to work, to make money, to put gas in your tank.
3. No pressure from the people around you. I was a diet coke addict up until New Years Eve 2011. I decided to swear off Diet Coke and go cold turkey at midnight. After three years without diet coke, an unfortunate switch of solo cups ended my reign. Now when EVER I try to enjoy a diet coke (which now a days are far less often than I did years ago) I get the “didn’t you give up Diet Coke” from anyone around me. When people know your goals and care about you, they keep you accountable. Whether that be texting you for a morning workout, suggesting frozen yogurt instead of milk shakes, helping you pick out paint colors to finally re-do your childhood bedroom, or bugging you to finally clean out your closet – they try to push you in the direction you want. With no resolutions for 2016, nagging will be kept to a minimum with no one really caring about your Diet Coke intake… or whatever…
4. An actual resolution for 2017. With no looming task for the year, it’ll give you time to really see how this year goes for you when you’re not trying so hard. You can take a good look at your expenses and see where you can trim costs and save some dollars. Maybe you realize it really is time to join iPhone world as your sliding keyboard phone isn’t the easiest to conference call on for work. Photo albums on Facebook show you wearing the same black dress for every going out occasion and it may be time to bring some new pieces into your life. So this time next year not only will you have a resolution, you’ll have a resolution that will actually be worth while.
So my resolution for 2016 is to dive in with no resolution what so ever. Call me lazy or non-committal… I’ll have time to fix that in 2017. 😉 Happy New Year to all! 
An Open Opportunity 