Five days into 2013 and how are your resolutions panning out? Did you make any? Have you stuck to them so far?

People I know have, this year, covered all ranges of Resolution attitude from ‘Didn’t make any/no point/why wait for a particular date to change your life?’ to fairly lengthy lists of things they want to change or achieve. There’s been the usual abundance of ‘How to keep your resolutions’ and ‘Why resolutions fail’ articles bouncing about on the web, as well as lists of the most common resolutions, and of course I’ve read everything I came across.

I’m actually in the ‘I didn’t make any’ camp, but only because come up with new resolutions pretty much every Monday morning, and then fail them by Tuesday evening. The resolution is usually something along the lines of ‘I will stick to my training plan’ or ‘I will eat healthily’ – both things that I really should not be failing to do at this stage, because I face certain death somewhere in the hills of Exmoor in June if I don’t kick my own arse into shape. On the more long-term side of things, I had that 1001-day list. The one that started this blog in the first place, years and years ago. Obviously I failed to hit the number of blog entries I was supposed to write according to that list (52, one a week for a year – should have been easy), but at least I’m still trying, even if I’m slow. That approach is my standard; it works with triathlons as well.

So, anyway, I started this year with no intention of trying to stick to a list of any kind. However, that my first two purchases of the year were a voucher for IPL and a steam-cleaner for the carpets, and the fact that I’ve spent the first three days back in London doing a mammoth overhaul of my flat (ok, this is more a joint effort), and that I asked for (nay, DEMANDED) a brand spanking new gym bag for Christmas probably say more about the ‘little’ changes I’m definitely not making than my mouth does. And Coffee Monster signed up for the Paris Marathon, so between the two of us this place is going to be a perfect haven of health and fitness for the next few months. Probably. The New Year effect sneaks in even if you don’t want to pay lip service to it.