Here's how I'm thinking of New Years Resolutions.

Instead of asking yourself what you want to accomplish this year, ask yourself who you want to become at the end of it. At the end of 2022, who do you want to be?

Personally, I want to be a developer and writer. At the end of 2022, I want to be able to build software and have an audience looking forward to my musings each time I hit publish. If that happens, 2022 will be a success for me.

Now it's your turn. Who do you want to be at the end of 2022? Someone different from who you are now? How so? Maybe you love who you are now and want to embrace that even more this year. Great! That makes things easy, but it's still going to take work to maintain that.

Once you've determined the person you want to become, figure out how that person spends their time. This will be your focuses for the year. I know developers spend their time building products, learning new languages, and maintaining their current projects. I know writers write, no matter how they feel, and they read a lot of different material for ideas. Therefore, I know my year will be spent writing (blogs and code) and reading. So, my focuses for 2022 are writing and reading.

At this point, you should understand who you want to become and what that person spends their time doing. If you love who you are, just do more of what you did in 2021.

Now, take whatever that person spends their time doing and turn them into habits for the New Year. There's plenty of resources out there on this, but this article from James Clear is one of my favorites: "7 Strategies to Help You Bounce Back After Slipping Up."

Remember, every action you take is a vote for the type of person you become. There is no action too small to start with, but there are actions too big to start with. Start with small, tiny changes and watch yourself be transformed into a new person at the end of the year.