Every year on this blogsite, I make some resolutions for the New Year.

This year I am going to do something slightly different. I’m making one big resolution, which in actuality is 365 small resolutions wound up into one big resolution.

For the next 365 days, I’m going to try something new every single day.

My goal is to end the year believing that I’ve experienced a much-richer life as a result of this experiment.

I’m feeling staid. I’ve been in the same job for 11 years (and nearly 15 in my part-time teaching job!). I’ve lived in the same house for 10 years; the same city for 23 years. I’ve been with the same guy for 28 years. Not that I have plans to change any of the above, but I’m the epitome of cocooning, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

2013 wasn’t a good year for me. Because I was sick for almost 25% of the year, I grew to live in fear of travelling and of trying new foods, things I used to love to do. I spent way too much time at home, and way too much time feeling unbalanced and sorry for myself.

Basically, I’m bored. I’m kind of sad. I don’t feel I’ve taken any risk in recent times.

I recently received a Christmas card from my Aunt Bev. She’s almost 80. 20 years ago, she wasn’t in a good place. One by one all her immediate family members died. She was alone and lonely. Her circumstances changed when she had to take custody of her granddaughter. Suddenly Aunt Bev was 70 and listening to Eminem and Shakira and learning to send text messages. She was so busy that she had no time to feel sorry for herself. Fast forward to today and this year’s card was full of positivity and fun. What she writes seems written by someone with a much younger outlook. If she can change her life, so can I!

Doing something new every single day isn’t easy. It takes planning. My goal is to make the newness a mixture of work, personal and social activities. Some will be specific learning activities. Some will take more than a day to experience. Some of the things I have planned for the first three months include:

• Rent a cottage and get away for New Years.
• Learn to snowshoe.
• Read the entire instruction booklet for my new Vitamix and be able to operate it without hubby’s help.
• Make and eat an entire week’s worth of dinners from my Vitamix (detox baby!).
• Get through Lesson 8 of The Great Course “Building Great Sentences” by Professor Langdon Brooks. The Lesson is called “Coordinate, Subordinate and Mixed Patterns”. I believe this lesson is going to help me with my blogging style.
• Become the superuser of WorkforceMax at my office; learn a new feature every day.
• Go to a non-HR conference where I know no one, and meet some new people with like interests.
• Perform a grand act of kindness to a stranger and tell no one about it.
• Teach Mars to walk on a loose leash.
• Start the Canadian HR Bloggers Network.
• Record, edit and post a YouTube video.
• Improve my WordPress skills and add new features to this website.
• Gain a better understanding of SEO as it applies to The EO List.
• Explore and download at least 3 new apps on my phone.
• Explore an activity or two on www.codeacademy.com.

What are your New Year’s resolutions? How can we help each other?

Three cheers for cheerfulness. Happy 2014!