Around this time every year, I start to examine the year that was. It’s about this time that I decide I slept and ate too much; didn’t exercise enough, work hard enough, or save enough .. basically, I berate myself for wasting 365 days of my life, and gaining a kilo – or five.

I start to formulate a “plan” for the coming year, which without fail includes my list of New Years Resolutions. A list that only sets me up for another year of failure.

My first “resolution” was made in my seventh year, after hearing my Mum vow (yet again) that she would “resolve to lose weight in 1993″. I vowed I would keep my room clean, a resolution that lasted all of about a week. I had better things to do then arrange my stuffed animals neatly on my freshly made bed. My Mum didn’t keep her resolution that year, either – the next year she signed up with Jenny Craig.

As I got older, my list of resolutions became longer, and quite frankly, increasingly ludicrous. Resolutions over the years include, but are not limited to: lose weight, get straight A’s, give up chocolate, lose weight, experience my first kiss, get a job, become a vegetarian, lose weight, save money … the list goes on. And on. Funnily enough, one year I did lose weight – a lot of weight. But I can thank a predisposition to an eating disorder that evolved into anorexia, rather than attributing any weight loss to the making of a resolution prior to the New Year for that one.

By the end of 2006 I was a pro at creating my “resolutions”, and I’d decided on a “fool-proof” plan that would see me succeed in 2007. I came up with “Project Buff” – a resolution that involved monthly goals, and was to see me on my way to a fitness mag body. Unfortunately, this plan back-fired, and the monthly goals that I thought were so perfect only resulted in my self-esteem suffering twelve times a year, instead of just the once.

Standing in Times Square, New York City, at 11:40pm on December 31st last year, I decided I was DONE with making New Years Resolutions. The ball dropped, I saw in 2008 with one million or so other sardines, and I went back upstairs to my hotel room to eat Ben & Jerry, and watch the street cleaners sweep up the few tonnes of confetti that had been dumped on us just minutes earlier.

Sans resolutions, 2008 was probably my worst year yet.

So. Here we are at the end of my twenty-third year. The not making resolutions for the year didn’t work too brilliantly for me either – I now feel like a failure for not having any resolutions to reflect back over … It seems I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.

I do well with structure, but if you pen me into too small a space, I tend to rebel. This year, I’m making non-resolutions. Instead, I’m giving myself some general guidelines to live by: