The Year of the Cougar: It’s Do or Die in 2012

With New Year?s right around the corner, people are getting ready to party, puke and kick start the customary resolutions. Whether it?s making a commitment to lay off the Pringles, ditch the drive-thru gig, or approach the office cougar, New Year?s resolutions are often well thought-out, highly appropriate life changes (well, maybe not the cougar thing so much). The problem, however, lies in the fact that many resolutions call for actual action and willpower on the part of the um… resolutioner, something many of us lack. Being as such, many people find themselves popping open the Pringles, handing out value meals, and/or watching said cougar date the jerk in IT for another year rather than make a change.

Make a quality resolution this year

Recognizing things you need to change about yourself is a mature, adult thing to do. New Year?s resolutions are in turn a way to make us even more mature and adult in the process (unless yours is to start collecting more Nina Turtle figures or something.) Eating healthier, pursuing a better job, building up the confidence to ask out a 65-year-old coworker, all of these things have to do with achieving goals and improving oneself.

Asked recently what my resolution was this year, I didn?t know how to respond. I have never really made New Year?s resolutions, choosing instead to scrutinize every aspect of my existence 365 days a year. But I now see the benefits of these yearly makeovers. It?s not about the resolution itself, but about having the confidence and strength to improve your life. It takes guts to pinpoint something about yourself you want to change. Recognizing that you?re not reaching your full potential is the first step in doing something about it.

Have you ever seen the Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman movie ?The Bucket List?? Me neither. I have, however, stumbled upon a website that makes it easier to keep track of ambitions for the New Year (and every year to follow.) Thisisyourlist.com is a site that allows you to keep track of what it refers to as ??I have to do that? moments.? While not necessarily about making a change per se, it can serve as a reminder of the big things you want to accomplish in your life. That cougar in accounting? Drop the goal in your bucket list and check it off as soon as you?ve taken her out to Olive Garden.

However you decide to go about fulfilling your New Year?s resolution, whether it’s via Thisisyourlist.com or getting ?Get More Tattoos? tattooed on your forehead, in the end it all falls on you. Come January 1^st, once you?ve picked yourself up off the floor of your friend?s bathroom, it?s do or die. If you really want it, it?s now or never (or next year). Don?t go another year waiting to accomplish your goals.

So, if your resolution really is to acquire more Ninja Turtle figures, you better start watching eBay like a hawk.