Every year, I make New Year’s resolutions with great enthusiasm and hope.  I’m an optimist.  Yesterday, I committed to the 2010 list.  Almost as soon as I’d set the pen down, I stumbled upon an article that haunted me all day: 

“Statistically speaking, this is what 2010 will be like for you:

1. You will break your resolutions by the end of January.
2. You will make the same amount of money as the average of your last 5 years' total income (possibly less in this current economy).
3. You will gain 2 pounds of body fat.
4. You will struggle with the same habits, patterns, and behaviors that you always have.
5. You will get to the end of the year and have made very little progress in your life.”

It was like God or the Devil (so hard to know the difference sometimes) was taunting me – trash-talking my resolve.

 In a defensive move, I decided to list my fabulocity over the past decade:

Year 2000                                                                            

• CEO of an international company                             
• Married                                                                               
• Listed in Forbes as a Millionaire in the Making    
• Lived in a 4000 square foot home in Sonoma with a vineyard
• Traveled to 22 countries around the globe          

Year 2010

• CEO of a nearly crippled company (dot com crash and 2008 econocaust)
•  Divorced in 2003 and haven’t been on a single date since
• More debt than assets (econocaust + divorce = financial ruin)
• Live in San Francisco in a lovely 1900 square foot home with double-paned windows so I can’t hear the freeway outside
• Traveled around…um…the Bay Area last year

Apparently, I also decided to see that 2 pound gain per year bet and raise it a few pounds as well.

Upon further reflection, I realized the above statistical predication was actually quite rosy compared to the reality of my life. The only progress I’ve made over the past decade has been a rapid downward spiral towards a lonely, sexless, penniless death. 

So, I’m declaring war on my life’s atrophy.  I’ve made a new, more detailed and actionable resolution list, and  I am determined to better my life in all areas by December 31, 2010, statistics be damned.  The resolution list has some easily attainable goals (just to keep my motivated), some not so easy ones, and some nearly impossible ones because I have to make up for a decade of self-implosion.

 2010 Bucket List:

1. Improve physical health (ok, I mean appearance, but trying to be enlightened about it)
2. Get financially healthy (this belongs in the ‘nearly impossible’ category, fyi)
3. Give up being a chron-optimist and become a chron-realist (I always think I have more time than I do, so I’m consistently late)
4. Learn to speak French (I speak a little, assuming there aren’t any French people in the room)
5. Take time to hear my mother’s stories and record them (this is harder than it sounds)
6. Go Green(er)
7. Give anonymously to at least 2 people each week (part of the enlightenment plan)
8. Grow my company’s revenues to 2003 levels, at least
9. Make amends and restitution with a friend I have hurt (more on this later)
10. Travel to France to use my new French-speaking ability
11. Find love…or maybe just a date would be good
12. Sing back-up vocals on stage for a band or artist (John Mayer, please)
13. Become a writer

 2010 Phuket List:

1. Spend a day in my PJs, watching movies, eating junk food and drinking champagne and cocktails
2. Flirt mercilessly with someone who doesn’t give a crap about me, and do it without shame or remorse
3. Binge-spend on something ridiculous and unnecessary (like trip to France)
4. Spend one night doing a bar-crawl (preferably in a foreign country or NYC) until at least 5 am
5. Take a duvet day in bed and feel sorry for myself (and all the goals I have not yet reached)
6. Learn to curse in French
7. Go on the Words and Wine tour with my friends, combing writing and wine.  Or…just partake in the wine.  Forget the words bit.
8. Throw a big party for absolutely no reason
9. Have a ‘forget love, go for sex’ day (hopefully after singing back-up vocals for John Mayer)
10. Go to a movie theatre and ‘movie-hop’ for a day
11. Get a map, point to a destination, and road-trip it there spontaneously to escape some monumental problem
12. Crash a party that’s hard to get into and stay for at least an hour (just because it’s the Phuket list, doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to throw in some challenges)
13. If I can’t be a writer, be a blogger (see, we can already check one off the list)

 There you have it.  13 goals and 13 anti-goals. I chose number 13 as a symbol of going above and beyond the limited 12 months of the year...or mabye because I was feeling lucky. 

Over the next year, I will attempt to check off every resolution/goal on my list.  I will add more details and specific tasks for each item in upcoming blogs.  In addition, I will ask for input and challenges from all of you.  I expect this to be an interactive journey, and you’re welcome to come along if you feel your life is as pathetic as mine…or even if you just need a little nip/tuck around some of those saggy areas of your life.   Create your own resolutions and goals, share them here, on Twitter or on my Facebook page.  Send a video account of you practicing/achieving one of your goals, or observe quietly if you prefer and enjoy everyone else’s humiliation.

 Let the reinvention of 2010 begin.