I've never been big on resolutions.

Growing up, we would take a single piece of paper and fold it in half so there were two sides to it.

On one side, we would write down things we wanted to do and be less of, things we wanted to remove from our lives, things we no longer wanted to be part of our identities.

On the other side, we would write down the things we wanted to do and be more of.

It didn't matter how many things we wrote. Once, I wrote a single bullet point: "I want to be more like Tona." (Tona is my brother.) For me, it was a catchall that worked.

As a grown up, I've tried resolutions. I've made big plans on December 30 and 31, prepping the world for Super-Me. On January 1 and henceforth, the old Jacob Schnee would be dead and gone. The new one would be the only one.

Then January 8 rolled around. If by the 14th I had kept up with half of my resolutions, well what better reason was there to have a celebratory bowl of ice cream?

They didn't work for me.

Thankfully I discovered the power of habits through a few key sources:

• zenhabits - thank you Jason Harris for putting me onto Leo's life-changing website.

• The Power of Habit - gave me a better understanding of the neurological bases of habits and how we could "hack" the system. Also discovered the importance of behavioral triggers thanks to this book.

• Tim Ferriss' interview with Terry Crews - I have replayed this interview at least 10 times. There are just so many dense layers and nuggets to unpack. Pick just one, apply it, and your life will become far better. The two most important remnants continuing to shine a light on my life so far have been the Master Key System and the concept of Day-Tight Compartments. I'll get into those in a later post, but in a nutshell they go this way.

The Master Key System

Have --> Do --> Be.

To have something, you have to do it.

To do something, you have to be it.

Day-Tight Compartments

What am I going to do with my life? Am I living up to my potential? Do I love the work I'm doing? How do I find my passion? (This concept, especially, is becoming more loathsome as I get older, but that we'll explore in another post.)

All of these are questions that we'd do well to consider, but distract us from the day-to-day actions we need to take to actually get there.

Napoleon Hill proposes an alternate philosophy, to avoid worry and keep yourself focused on your path. Live in day-tight compartments, he says, and focus only on the one day you have right now. At the end of the day, ideally you have given your best and you can rest satisfied. Even if you had a rough day, it is in the past now and tomorrow you've got a brand new palate to paint with.

This has a way of simplifying and removing boundaries, of allowing you to play in the now, and see opportunities and angles you otherwise might have missed while lost in the morass of your time-tripping mind.

Therefore

In 2018, I won't be making resolutions, or focusing too much on where I'll be in 5 years.

As Anderson would say...

"what about today?"

"What about tonight?"

Only one at a time.