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New Year, Old Resolutions

Its January, so it must be time for resolutions.  For years I did this process called "Better Bryan" where I would try to come up with resolutions that bettered myself.  If you want to make the world, a better place, take a look at yourself, then make that change,* after all.

So in 2016 I continued with tradition and I set some goals.  The following January I would set new goals, and in that post go back and look at the goals for the year.  Inevitably I missed on some.  But I have to say, somewhat proudly, that I generally keep my improvements going.  But 2016 was different.

I failed.  Spectacularly.

My goals for 2017 were to post every week.  Failed.

Goal 2 was to grow the blog.  Despite only posting twice in the first three months, my site visit numbers were awesome.  So, thank you Russian crawlers, I guess, for that..  Failed.

The Book Project was #3.  I'm going to give myself a pass here.  After months of putting out feelers and checking the water, this just wasn't something anyone was interested in.  Not entirely my fault.

Goal 4 was to check in on more blogs and say hi.  Yeah, failed.

Goal 5 was to post more pics, which is hard to do when you aren't posting anything.  At all.  Failed.

So, uh, bad news.  What happened?  We lost a beloved dog right before 2017.  I don't have any illusion that the event didn't effect me well into 2017.  We also got a new dog in February.  Bad move on our part.  Puppies are time sucks and I wasn't ready, but whatever.

We also bought a house.  HUGE time suck.

All bad excuses, to the one.

So this year I'm reading David Kadavy's book titled The Heart To Start.  Its sorta self help.  Which is saying something, because I usually find self-help advice to be overly broad, general recommendations needed only by those that aren't very self aware.

OH, YOU MEAN I HAVE TO WRITE SOMETHING TO POST IT?  Shock.  Its also great that many self-help books recommend just upsetting the apple cart that is your life.  That is nice and all at 20, or 25, or if you are homeless at the moment.  But I kinda like my life, just maybe not this one part of it.  So upsetting the 95 percent I like to correct the 5 percent I'm struggling on seems like bad advice.

But yet, here I am, reading something I would never, ever, suggest to anyone else.

*Lyrics by Michael Jackson.

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