Resolve Face!

Hello, dear readers,

And a Happy New Year one and all!

I hope you all had a good festive period. I hope Santa brought all you good girls and boys lots of lovely pressies, and you’ve suitably gorged yourselves on mince pies, chocolate, enough turkey to sink a small navy, and, of course, a piece or three of Stollen.

I know I have.

Coupled with the obligatory booze (although the customary drop of port didn’t actually happen in our house until well into the new year. I’m talking a mere two days ago!) it’s meant the yearly pledge to drop a bit of timber is getting off to a rocky start, one that, going by the two boxes of mince pies, left over choccies, port, & bourbon, may not improve all that soon.

Still, it is the season for new starts, so, in a faintly reminiscent fashion why don’t we talk about that.

Tabula Rasa
It’s a little funny, talking about clean slates when this promises to be a rough rehash of previous years posts.

No doubt I’ll make several oaths to myself in the hope that making them semi-public will help me accomplish them. It’s a tactic that has been proven not to work, and I think part of that is down to the nature of said promises.

We can call them resolutions, if you like. Those well meaning goals of self-improvement. Health, wealth, new horizons, fresh challenges, things to see, do, and learn. It's all very exciting…

…for now.

The trouble is that feeling never seems to last all that long. One missed trip to the gym (personally, I’ve forgotten to go several years in a row), one forbidden take-away after a hard day, one missed session of learning or artistic expression, one walk spoiled by bad weather, one alarm ignored. It seems that sometimes that is all it takes for us to put our well meaning resolutions in the bin. There has to be a better way.

Get Smart

Last year, I utilised a book called ‘Atomic Habits’, with the good intention of making constant small changes. Sadly, this too seemed to fade away as the seasons turned and my resolve faded. So, what else can I do to make 2026 the year I emerge a brighter, better version of myself? What can I do to embed long term, positive, behaviours?

Well, I think I might have been on the right track in avoiding resolutions altogether. Instead I resolved (hang on… wait a minute) to hold myself to looser ‘aims’ in order to avoid the ‘all or nothing’ aspect of resolutions. Of course the downside of such an approach is a much more laissez faire attitude which in turn can lead to those aims being put on the back burner and forgotten about.

So, what is the middle ground?

I think a S.M.A.R.T (Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic. Timed) approach could possibly be helpful to keep my shoulder to the wheel, breaking down bigger aims into more bite sized chunks. I also think that a regular (say every two months) progress check on some of my longer term goals could bear fruit.

Let’s start by popping down some of the larger aims and see where we can go from there.

Aim 1: Become a published author by this time next year.

This is a long term ambition of mine, and something I’ve been prevaricating over for the longest time.

Aim 2: Learn Turkish.

Ever since last year’s holiday when I picked up the barest smattering, this has been something I’ve wanted to do.

Aim 3: Read a book a month.

This one is a carry over from last year, but I would love to rediscover a real love of reading. Sadly, more time has not equaled more time to read. This needs to improve.

Ready…Aim…
There. Three aims of various difficulty. The question now is how to ‘chunk’ them. I think we’ll start with:-

Aim 1: finish the final re (re-re-re-re-re-re-re) editing of the book wot I wrote and get her spell checked, grammar checked and formatted.

Aim 2: Source the best home learning resource (Babel? Duolingo? Something else?)

Aim 3: Get a stock of books that do not represent a chore. Good reads. Fun reads.

That’s specific and measurable, and ‘chunking’ the bigger tasks makes them less overwhelming and more achievable and realistic. As for Timing, well this blog represents a wonderful resource to act as a check list and a to-do list, so let’s make it Wednesday the 4th of February, four weeks from today. Hopefully I can make progress by then, and hopefully, from there, I can keep the ball(s) rolling, but if not, ah well, it’s not the end of the world. We make peace with it and we go again.

If you would like to join me in this New Year endeavour, or even just fancy holding my feet to the fire (a bit of a waste of time as I wouldn’t feel it) I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments section below or on the various social media I share my blog on.


Until next time!




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Hey, there! If you enjoyed reading any of the above, why not take a look at some of my published work? Below you’ll find links to a number of short stories I’m lucky enough to have included in anthologies. I’d love to know what you think.



New Tales Of Old



Death Ship



Pestilence: Drabbles 1



Reaperman: Drabbles 3



The Musketeers Vs Cthulhu



Eldritch Investigations