 Keeping your Neo Resolutions
by mistiehall
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With the first of every new year, people look ahead to their goals, past dreams and wishes. Maybe this will be the year to achieve those dreams, who knows? Following that, most (if not all!) will make resolutions. If you've been on the neoboards at all for the past week, you'll have noticed an uptake in "What are your neo resolutions?" boards. Likely you'll see things like: Save my neopoints, earn more trophies, work on game avatars. None of these are bad resolutions, but non-specific resolutions often in end failure, and what's the point of that? If you don't actually want to benefit from your resolution, there's really no point in making one at all. So what can you do to give yourself a better success rate?1. Be specific
Rule number one of goal making is to be specific as possible about your goals. A goal like "Save my neopoints" isn't a bad goal, but is that a tangible goal that you can ever reach? How will you know when you've reached it? Will you have reached it the moment you put 1000 NP in your bank account? Instead set a goal with a specific quantity of neopoints. A different way of phrasing that might be "I'm going to save one million neopoints per month." For some that might be easily doable, for others not so much. That brings me to my second point.
2. Make sure you're setting attainable goals
Don't set yourself up for failure! This makes resolutions forgettable and frustrating. This leads to us giving up, which is not the point! If you're not very good at flash games, setting a goal of "Get all the flash game avatars EVER" might not be an attainable goal. You could set a goal that you will at least try for one game avatar per week. Many of the games just require a really good guide and a whole lot of practice. 3. Speaking of practice... do your research!
It can be very difficult to know whether or not a resolution is attainable without doing your research. Back to the example of earning one million neopoints a month, you should think of how you're going to go about doing this. Again, if you're rubbish at games and this is your only method of earning neopoints, a million neopoints a month might not be the easiest or most attainable task. If you check on the neoboards, you will see loads of people making neopoints all sorts of ways. Restocking, food club, habitarium... all of these are additional ways you can save towards your goals. Do a little bit of research on these other methods and you may be able to easily surpass your goals! 4. Ask for help
For example, if your resolution is to build up your battledome set, and you've done some research beforehand, it certainly wouldn't hurt to get the opinions of your peers. While the Battledome chat can be a bit intimidating for someone who hasn't spent much time there, they are the most knowledgeable people about weapons/training that exist. I've never gotten anything but really good advice from BD chatters, and they're certainly the ones worth talking to if you're trying to decide between a Kelpbeard's Trident and a Sword of Skardsen. Alternatively, if your goal is to get more avatars, the Avatar Chat is the place to go! You'll see many boards offering pet and item lends, and while you may not get to borrow from every person with every pet or item, someone will loan you and eventually you'll build up enough of a reputation that people will see you're trustworthy and loan you other avatar items and pets. Whatever the resolution, there's usually some board to visit where you can benefit from the knowledge of others.
5. Give yourself time, the art of multitasking
Real life happens. Sometimes you may get really busy at work, or may have a big exam coming up. You may have to cut back (hopefully not too much!) on your Neopets time. This can make those goals you've set for yourself difficult, if not impossible. If you know you have something coming up, plan ahead. Try to budget the time you do have to work on your resolutions to get maximum results. Read about game strategies while you're cooking dinner. Leave your habitarium running in a second tab while you read your textbook. Write your Neopian Times article during your break at work. 6. If all else fails... reevaluate!
Hey, maybe these resolutions aren't for you. Maybe you have spent countless hours and haven't earned one game avatar. Maybe despite your best efforts, your poems aren't being accepted into the poetry contest (like me, *sadface*). Accept that everyone can't be good at everything and reevaluate what you ARE good at. I am not a good restocker. I probably couldn't restock an unbuyable if it sat in the shop bouncing up and down and waving at me for twenty minutes. I get too nervous to move quickly enough. I am good at feeding kadoaties (which is weird because that's a pressure situation as well!). So I was able to pretty easily get the kad avatar, but found the chocolate shop avatar much more difficult. I was able to get it, but I also had to accept that I was never going to be a "Master Restocker." And that's ok. Find what you're best at and develop those skills and talents. Don't be afraid to change your resolutions in order to do this, New Year's Day isn't the only time of the year you can set goals for the year!
To sum it all up, setting New Year's Resolutions can be a great way at looking ahead to what you'd like to accomplish in the coming year, and with a few simple tips, you can create a tangible, attainable resolution that you won't give up on in the first two weeks, or at the very least rethink what you'd like to do and create a resolution that best suits your strong points.
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