That unmistakably thick, heady fog of impractical resolutions and implacably glass-half-full attitudes permeates the air: it’s the New Year.

I know I’m never more purposeful than I am in January. One year ends, another begins. A fresh start. A new chance to reinvent ourselves and get it right this time. Or something? The problem is that, well-intentioned if not a tad naïve as we creatures are wont to be, this newfound sense of determination comes with an expiration date, often dissipating into the ether as January comes to an end.

Right now, people are scuttling to their neighbourhood gyms with lemming-like haste, bent on shedding the sedentary lifestyle habits the holidays afford. Others attack their lofty to-do lists, often set in the haze of tryptophan and ceaseless imbibification—to read x amount of books this year, to pay off student loans, to spend more meaningful time with friends and family—with virginal eagerness.

Still others wisely scoff at the thought; self-improvement, broadly defined—especially in light of how fashionable it seems to be at this time of year—is a fantastical carrot on a string meant to temporarily distract us from our terminally sorry lot in life.

Not to be a fly in the ointment, but it seems the pessimists have a point here. It might just be that slightly cynical edge of mine getting in the way, but anecdotally, there doesn’t appear to be a linear relationship between the meteoric rise in sales of self-help books this time of year and the resultant amount of happiness and accomplishment in the universe.

Is there any sense in even trying? Are our clichéd resolutions destined for failure? The most sensible attitude to adopt with respect to all this irrepressible hopefulness is one of ambivalence and cautious optimism.

We are often the engineers of our own demise when it comes to goal-setting; sometimes there are perfectly accessible and preventable reasons for this that we ignore at our peril. We pretend, we externalize, we rationalize the reasons why we can’t or don’t honour these agreements, setting psychological boobey traps for ourselves along the way.

I am as imperfect as the rest, often actively avoiding or otherwise doing things that make my life more difficult than it ought to be.

But I am also subject to the very same Pollyanna forces motivating everyone else to be better, to do better. And there are a few simple strategies I’ve found semi-effective in helping to keep the goal-setting wheels from falling off that I’d like to impart. Note: I think these provide a good foundation where other goals may find sturdy ground.

Use a day-planner

It seems true on an intuitive level that those who keep tangible, written versions of their daily affairs are more likely to meet deadlines, keep appointments, and be generally less neurotic human beings.

I should be a salaried employee for the amount that I’ve been evangelizing on the behalf of Blueline day-planners (or the generic Staples brand) over the last five years. I’ve used many agendas in my day, but until Blueline, none has made me excited to ritualistically sit down on Sunday mornings and fill out my schedule.

Each seven-day week is broken down into 15-minute blocks in these planners. One strategy I’ve adopted is to spend about 30 minutes every Sunday filling in every single 15-minute block of time in the week to come with something, starting with penciling in high priority and non-negotiable things such as deadlines and class and work times, then when to eat, study, meditate, exercise, spend time with family/friends, and so on down the line.

Available at Staples for about $15, they come in undated versions, without the typical calendar year dates included, that are great for several reasons. If you get swallowed up by a particularly unruly, disorganized week and forget to fill out your planner, the dateless pages make it so that valuable planning space has not been lost with the trappings of time, but instead may be used for plotting out next week’s schedule.

It’s good to have a roadmap so that when detours occur, you can cut your losses and get back on course.

Meditate

The subtext to “meditate” should really be “do yoga/exercise regularly,” but meditation, I’ve found, can have one of the most profound impacts on attentiveness, irritability, and the ability to be compassionate toward your fellow hominid – all pillars for sustainable goal-setting.

A few years ago I had a panic attack. It was likely induced through a combination of caffeine overconsumption, sleep-deprivation, and irregular eating – the tripartite plight of countless university students.

A trip to the old sawbones yielded a prescription to cut caffeine out of my diet. This did not last, naturally. However, meditation was suggested to me as a possible non-pharmaceutical intervention for anxiety in the past, so I sought out a couple meditation groups in the city and began meditating for 15 minutes in the morning before breakfast and 15 minutes before dinner in the afternoon.

Taking up meditation is much easier and more enjoyable in the presence of a mentor or in a group of experienced meditators. One group (winnipegmeditation.org) that occasionally meets at either the U of W or the Millennium Library is comprised of some devotees of the since-deceased guru Sri Chinmoy. Another is the Winnipeg Insight Meditation Group, which meets on Sunday mornings at Yoga North’s new location at 894 Westminster Ave., and again on Wednesday evenings at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, 755 Elm St. (More info at: winnipeginsightmeditation.shawwebspace.ca.)

If you’re on the shy side or would prefer to start on your own, find yourself instructional audio recordings by Doctor Jon Kabat-Zinn. There are several available on YouTube or for download on iTunes.

You needn’t be into religion, supernatural hokum, or superstitious Wolseleyite new age wisdom to enjoy the benefits of mediation, though you may have to bite your tongue on occasion should you decide to participate in some of the meditation groups found around the city.

When you fail, fail more gently

If you fail to accomplish a goal, don’t beat yourself up. Get back to the basics: re-examine and reset your goals accordingly. You need only grant yourself permission.

In the face of unreached goals, try to remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. Sometimes we don’t meet goals because we lose sight of whatever motivated us to set them to start with, or we change and our goals change along with us. The point is to always cultivate an atmosphere of gentle, nonjudgmental, constant reflection.

I know the line between banality and wisdom is blurring at a rapid pace here. Just remember that an internal dialogue concerning self-improvement can always be reopened – regardless of the time of year.