“Why do you need to wait for a new year to start working on your goals?” is what I’d often rationalize with for not coming up with new year resolutions. While that’s still fairly true, I’d like to try take advantage of using them as smaller goals, side-tasks if anything, as I’m already constantly working on the biggest goals I’d like to achieve (eg. getting better in Smash). It’s been almost two weeks in, but I’ve finally decided what I’d like to work on over the year. Let’s take a look.

Note that my biggest goals – Smash, career, side projects – are not part of these resolutions as I’m always actively working towards them. These resolutions are instead less urgent yet just as important, or maybe just quite frankly less important but it’d be nice to implement. I’m keeping my biggest goals on the down low for now, hehe.

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My theme for this year is labeled as “Initiative.” As a shy introvert, one of my biggest flaws I’ve constantly been working on is simply being more sociable. I’ve come a long way, maintaining conversation fairly easily now with people of all backgrounds, and naturally diving into deep conversation with people I’ve just met. However, I still suffer from the greatest of social anxiety whenever I feel like I need to make the first move, whether it’s wanting to meet someone new or trying to start a conversation.

Social

• Call people by their name/tag (e.g. “Hey Kevin” instead of just “Hey”)
  • It’s such a simple tip from How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It’s something I’ve noticed that the most social friends of mine do often and naturally. It builds trust with acquaintances, showing them that we’re listening to them and trying to get to know them. And whether they’re acquaintances or friends, it makes them feel important.
  • Somehow I always cringe whenever I do it, with social anxiety kicking in harder than anything else. I plan on implementing this first with my closest friends / girlfriend, then hopefully expanding from there.
• Start conversations
  • Finding a conversation topic is SO HARD FOR ME when it comes to seeing old acquaintances. For acquaintances, I already know a lot of the basics already, and I get so caught up in figuring out what to ask from there, and I never make the first move (and sometimes that means the relationship never develops). I’d rather talk to strangers, because I can literally ask about anything.
  • I need to have the courage to pick any topic, even if something I already know the answer to such as “Oh when was the last time you came to this tournament?” despite me going to the tournament every week. I need to accept what my brain gives me, and not overthink of how good of a conversation starter it is.
  • Throw out compliments as conversation starters, even if something as simple as “That drink looks really good, what is it?” (or- “is that X?”). I frankly am bad at giving out compliments unless if I am REALLY impressed (which doesn’t come easily), and I’d like to work on that this year.
• Don’t get drowned out in group conversations
  • Group conversations k i l l m e. Especially in group meetings. I have a time limit of one to two seconds to think of a response every time, making sure I get my word in before anyone else does. And either I’m too late, or I do respond first but someone starts their response a second or two later but louder, and out of politeness I stop my response to allow them to. Every time either of these happen, it makes me want to contribute to group conversations in general less and less. To be honest I’m not too sure on how to approach this besides telling myself that it just takes practice, and that these incidents are okay as they happen all the time.
• Instead of trying to correct other people’s problems – just listen or empathize.
  • I’ve been trying to connect with people over the past year by using my overall optimism and positivity to encourage people in unfortunate situations, hoping that I can simply make them feel better. And I’ve realized that it’s frankly annoying. It works on myself when bad things happen to me, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do for others. For example, when someone gets knocked out of a tournament, I would say, “It’s okay, it’s just one tournament and there’s many more opportunities in the future.” (I’m at least more than aware enough NOT to say, “oh you should’ve done this-and-that and you could’ve won that way.) They would then respond with something along the lines of, “You’re not wrong…” Instead a better situation would be for example me simply saying, “Sorry to hear that” followed by a warm-hearted “Thanks buddy.”
• Introduce myself to people.
  • I’m decent at doing this when I play someone new in a tournament, since my opponent and I are forced in a one-on-one social situation. But outside of the game, ESPECIALLY if they have some kind of social status, more social anxiety kicks in and I can never go up someone new and introduce myself. If someone introduces me to them, I’m all good, but otherwise I suffer so hard.
  • There’s so many things I could say. I can throw in a compliment for my reasoning to go up to them: “Hi, I’ve always wanted to meet you, as I really like your ____. I’m Kevin.” I can throw in a commonality that I know we already share: “Hi, I’ve seen you with my friend Devin all the time so I just wanted to introduce myself, I’m Kevin.”
  • I need to remind myself that I LOVE it when people introduce themselves to me, regardless of their social status. It may or may not be the same for everyone else, but I need to remind myself with this as encouragement for me to build friendships more easily.

Other Goals

Health

• Limit desserts and sugary drinks to one per week (milk tea included lol)
  • My sweet tooth is the only major setback in my diet that I need to fix. Despite working out regularly, making my own meals, and focusing my diet primarily on veggies and protein, my sugar intake just offsets everything.
• Sleep by the latest 12am
  • Lately my sleep schedule has been rather iffy, sleeping between 1-2am every day including weeknights. I’ve been accepting this sleep schedule since work hours are flexible (I’ve been going in to work every day around 10-10:30am), but the biggest problem I noticed with my late nights was my lack of productivity.
  • I’d lie to myself saying I’m reading or analyzing something Smash-related, and while I do try to do so, more than half of my time is spent on social media. I think sleeping earlier (and hence going to work earlier, ending work earlier, and getting back home earlier) will help me truly focus on the things I want to work on when I’m at home.
• Implement more cardio at the gym
  • Ever since I completed my first and only full marathon in late 2014, I’ve neglected running, rationalizing with the fact that since resistance training builds muscles and more muscles consume more calories, weights are all I need. While it may be true, to an extent, I’ve noticed my overall stamina levels dropping and my stomach growing.
  • I had run several races last year – a half-marathon, a 20k, and a 10k, hoping that those races would motivate me to run more to train up for them. That plan didn’t work, and I just ran all my races slowly haha.
  • I’ve put in on average maybe 20-30 minutes of cycling a week at the gym last year (on top of 2-3 hours a week doing weights), which is a decent start but I can do better, hoping to add more running to the mix.

Travel

• Travel out of country
  • I have yet to travel out of the states without my family – and even with that it’s been 12 years. Whether it’s going solo or with a close friend or two, I’d love to gather the courage to step into a truly foreign land. I’ve been traveling quite a lot within the states for the past two years, and now I think I’m ready to expand even farther.

Creative

• Blog more!
  • I’d love to record more of my experiences, especially of my travels. I’d like to think that my travels as a mid-level Smash player are definitely unique enough to share with the world.
  • I’d love to return to my post-mortems of the books I read as well, as I felt like I gained a lot more from each book by doing so (I frankly believe that I had stopped writing the book reviews as they felt time-consuming, taking me about 2-3 hours for each one. But that’s what I need to do if I truly want to connect with the book, and that’s what I’d love to share to the world.
  • Maybe I’ll even have the courage to make something into a vlog? I love the videos that other vloggers make, as well as looking back at a memory rather conveniently, but I always tell myself that I don’t want to add yet another vlog in the millions of videos in the sea of YouTube.
• Draw more!
  • I’m aiming to work on one artpiece a month, whether it’s traditional or digital. A curious idea I’ve had was creating poster-work for the Smash tournaments, with myself (whether it’s rendered as a photograph or a drawing doesn’t matter) and maybe even Donkey Kong in the picture.
• Rebuild my personal website.
  • I’d love to rebuild my website. Now that I’m out of college, I don’t need my college work on there anymore. Plus, the design feels stale. I don’t feel proud of sharing it to the world now. I’d love to rebuild my site so that it integrates with the rest of my social presence as well. Plus, I hadn’t worked with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in ages, so it’d be nice to get back to and add to my resume again.