How to Resolve Your New Year’s Resolutions

With the calendar to 2014 at midnight tomorrow, it’s that time of year again where you not only reflect on the year that was but also the year that will be – and how you plan on improving upon it. That’s right, it’s time to make your New Year’s Resolutions.

And with every good intention, you’re really going to do it this year! Seriously. Now yes, you said that last year, but this year you’re really really really going to do it – even though the odds don’t look good.

A casual glance around the internet suggests that 75% of the people who make resolutions will break them within the first week while less than 50% actually make it through the end of February.

So your good intentions actually don’t look too good. However, I do have a suggestion on how you could, at least, have fun with them – and maybe make some progress. However, you’ll need your passport.

The reason that most people abandon their resolutions is because they stay at home and simply repeat their bad habits. It’s hard to lose weight when you live a few feet away from your fridge. It’s difficult to find love if you retreat back to your apartment after work every night. It’s impossible to reduce your stress if you go back to your stressful job every morning…

You want to make a temporary – and hopefully seismic – change in your life? Leave the house, leave the job, leave the country. Go on a trip! Here are some suggestions on how you can tackle the five most popular New Year’s Resolutions… by packing your passport and traveling.

5. Spend more time with family and friends.

Well, what better way to spend quality time with family or friends than by taking a trip together? May I suggest a short one? And center it around one event.

If you plan a long trip – like a summer backpacking together – your regular personalities will emerge and you will fall back into the familiar roles that you play at home. There will be the Organizer that gets frustrated with everyone’s lack of responsibility. There will be the Complainer who wants everything just like at home. There will be the Late Person who makes you miss opportunities…

No, a short trip centered around one event like a Super Bowl or a cruise or a concert leaves far less room to get agitated. These events will go on with you or without you so there’s no room for error. And even if others get on your nerves from time to time, the event itself will have you focused on the good times. You’ll always remember the game, the cruise, or the concert. And you just might forget how Betty almost lost the tickets and how Judy got irritated with the waiter because they didn’t serve the salad dressing on the side.

4. Volunteer/Help Others.

Yes, you can do this at home. But, just like any resolution, the temptation to fall back on old habits and do nothing is far greater at home. By organizing a trip abroad to accomplish your goal to help others, there’s presumably no turning back once you start researching international organizations and book your flight.

3. Fall in love.

I fall in love during most of my trips: with the exotic location, with my temporary stress-free life, with a local girl, with a fellow traveler… It might be short-term love… but it’s love. So, in my opinion, you can travel to just about anywhere to find (temporary) love. Travel makes you spontaneous and try new things and play new roles and push the envelope and challenge yourself to take advantage of new opportunities because you don’t know if you’ll ever be back there again.

But if you need one particular place to visit to find love, there’s always Paris. You know, the City of Love?

2. Learn Something New.

Sure, you could do this at home too. But wouldn’t it be more fun to do this abroad? Now suddenly you have more exotic options to explore. Learn to swing dance? Enroll in one of London’s swing camps (or tango in Argentina or salsa in Colombia). Learn to surf? Go to one of Costa Rica’s surfing schools. Learn to scuba dive? Go to one of the various scuba schools sprinkled throughout Mexico and the Caribbean. Learn about art? Go to Italy and see it for yourself (and take up a painting class). Learn a new language? Go to the country where they speak it. You need to practice it, right? You might as well speak the language and learn how to order your dinner.

1. Lose weight and get fit.

I always lose weight when I travel – usually two pounds a week. Because I walk more. Because I eat less (too busy walking around and visiting the sites). Because I eat the local foods (ie. non-processed foods). And this year, I plan to lose a lot more weight… because I plan to walk most of the 800 kilometer Spanish Camino (Way of St. James) in June.

I mention it briefly in Bulls, Bands, and London:

“…Spanish tradition states that after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, James preached the Gospel in northern Spain. And after he was killed by Herod Agrippa in 44 AD, he was returned there by boat by his followers. Then in the eighth century, James’s relics were discovered in Santiago de Compostela. And voilà, Christians from all over Europe wanted to see them and pay their respects. So how did they get around in medieval times? They walked (or rode their horse if they could afford one). And the pilgrimage route, and the industry that catered to it, was born…

The medieval pilgrims often walked the route as a form of penance for some great sin, while others did it for the spiritual sensation of relinquishing their busy daily lives for the tranquility and camaraderie of a religious pilgrimage…”

Now I’m not doing the pilgramage for any religious reasons. And I’m not doing it to lose weight either (although that will happen).

No, I’m just doing it for the adventure… and to use it as the backdrop for book #3.

And as a bonus… I’ll be able to keep one of my New Year’s Resolutions!

GOOD LUCK, SAFE TRAVELS!

For more lists of things I learned while traveling, check out:

https://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/top-ten-never-change/

https://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/top-ten-things-i-learned/