A few years ago, I set close to 30 resolutions for the new year.

I know I included a few silly items like “buy more cute socks,” but most of the items were new endeavors that I never crossed off my list. They included fairly typical, year-end mandates about exercising more, making radical changes to my wardrobe, and changing my physical appearance through diet. Though a rush of adrenaline and desire to foster change made my listmaking easy, following through was considerably more difficult.

It’s easy to say resolutions don’t work and leave it at that, but the simple truth is that I got distracted by fantasies of my “New Me!” results and didn’t consider the effort and expense required by the massive changes I was taking on. Case in point, my list included buying new living room furniture… without taking into account my budget or the fact that someone was still going to have to pay the rent and utilities while I languished on a new sofa. A much smaller step, such as ‘shop Goodwill for a secondhand ottoman; purchase by February 28’ would have likely resulted in the acquisition of furniture at a pace and financial output I could handle.

When setting goals, it’s best to be realistic.

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