Resolutions for 2012

So another year goes by, and it's time to review how I did against the resolutions I made, back here.

1. Carry on writing every day. Done! 391 posts on this blog in 2011, plus some rantings on Everyone Is Running From Something
2. Get married. Done!
3. Read all the books, watch all the DVDs in the apartment and in our suitcases, before buying any more. Not done. Worse, although I said I'd make a list of all the things I had to read or watch this year, I never followed up on that resolution, so I'm not even sure how much I failed by.
4. Keep the apartment tidy. Sort of. Well, we have a bedside lamp, and although the flat is an utter state today, it remained in its tidied-state until we got home at 2 this morning and upheaved everything into a huge mess.
5. Run some races, keep weight below 12 stone. One marathon, and I finished 2011 at exactly 12 stone, which is good enough to count. Done!
6. Redraft The Great Old Game.  Oh dear. Not much progress here, after early January. Not done.
7. Learn to dance. Not done.
8. Learn to speak some Spanish. Muy difficult. Not done.
9. Stay in touch better with everyone I care about. I managed a letter a month until April, and because nobody seemed to ever write back, stopped.
10. Take a photograph every day. Nope. I did post 857 photographs to Flickr over the year, so on average I was doing ok, but looking at the calendar, I missed out October entirely and hardly touched my camera in September or November.
11. Finish things properly. Sort of.  Well, not done, I suppose.

So 2011 was a poor year for keeping the promises that I set at the start of the year - at best, a 30% success rate.  But hope springs eternal, and hopefully I can learn from my failings in the last 12 months, or at least fail better in the next 12.

With that in mind, here's what I want to concentrate on for 2012:

1. Constantly measure and improve - something I didn't do enough of in 2011 was look at my resolutions and ensure that I was sticking to them, or if they didn't reflect what I wanted, that I was revising them.  Every month for 2012 I want to spend at least one day checking in on where I am, and making changes to correct my path as necessary.
2. Comedy - moving to Singapore means uprooting and leaving much behind.  I want to have a solid ten minutes of comedy that will work in Singapore, and make it at least as far as the preliminary round of the Hong Kong Comedy Competition. (I'd put the finals in here, but there are goals that depend on you, and there are goals that depend on others - this list is for the things that should definitely be within my power.)
3. Keep writing - the blog was a good discipline for the past year. I want to make sure that I keep up my daily routine, that I manage to review every Bond film according to the Blogalongabond schedule, and (let's challenge things a bit) try to be the person with the most reviews published on Tripadvisor in 2012. The 2011 record was 531 (between 1 Jan and 7 December), but I want to see if I can beat that without resorting to reviewing the New York post office...
4. Finish things - in particular, I want to tie up the loose ends in a few areas: get Diet Croydon published as a Kindle book as I'd always (wrongly) assumed it had been; dub and release the rabbit noir video; produce a workable draft of The Great Old Game. Perhaps more generally, it's a matter of having some sense of integrity in life - as much as possible, doing what you said you'd do. Life's too short for disappointments. Oh, and here's a list of all the books and DVDs I should have read before I purchase any more...
5. Keep fit. I felt really disappointed not to have run a marathon in 2010, and almost as disappointed that I ran so slowly in 2011.  For 2012, I want to get a good time in a marathon - although I'm not sure what constitutes 'good' yet. On top of that, hopefully I can keep my weight below the magic 12 stone level, and with any luck not have stratospheric levels of cholesterol in my blood. I want to be able to do pilates regularly too - it's important to find some sort of exercise that the wife and I can do together.
6. Keep in contact. Again, I'm really sad and ashamed that I didn't keep in as regular contact with my friends and family as I should have.  This year I'm going to try as hard as I can to write at least one real letter every month.  I hope somebody replies at some point during these twelve months...
7. Learn to dance. Even if it's just a matter of being able to dance to Summercat proficiently, and no other piece of music in the entire world.
8. Learn to speak a foreign language. Not sure which one yet - should I brush up on my rusty French?  My pallid Japanese? Or go for broke and work on Spanish?
9. Meditate and count my blessings. I feel incredibly fortunate for my situation, for my friends, my family and the opportunities that I have. I need to spend a bit more time considering why I have these, and what I can do to reciprocate and ensure that I'm not jealous of my good luck. And I need to spend more time sitting calmly from time to time, and not wasting half my life driving imaginary cars around simulated race tracks.

OK.  That's nine for this year, the least since I started writing these up here.  Hopefully I do better than a 30% success rate this year...