Chris Fullman: Love him. Make him yours.

Ah, it’s that time of the year where everyone blogs, tweets, updates or comments on their resolutions, goals, wishes, targets or anything else they want to do in the new year. Open up Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or any other place where you can quickly see what a group of people are saying, and you’ll quickly be overwhelmed by the list of to-do’s people come up with.

It’s a funny thing, making resolutions for the New Year. Usually people resolve to do things they’ll never follow through with: quitting smoking, quitting drinking, losing weight, working less to spend more time with family or themselves, starting a company, finding zen.

Sounds good, right? In the joy of finally(!) getting out of the current year and into a new one where “you’ll make things different,” you conveniently ignore that real life will happen, and events or people around you will hinder or prevent your resolutions from being achieved. Or you’ll change your priorities based on something that happens, like changing a job (or finding yourself without one), getting pregnant, moving to a new place, winning the lottery, and your entire list is put on the back burner, replaced or quickly forgotten.

Now, a solution would be to only pick one positively-achievable resolution and just work towards that. The instant you introduce more than one resolution for the new year, you’re setting yourself up for not achieving many.

Let’s look at this year’s resolutions that I made a year ago today:

1. Get & Stay Healthy
2. Get Published
3. Become (Immediate) Debt Free
4. Start a Trilogy
5. Go to Another Country
6. Develop a Life-Changing Tool
7. Find Another

Yeah, I’m still laughing at how horribly ambitious that list was.

Here’s the tally for this year: one. I’ve only achieved #4, which was starting a trilogy. It’s mapped out, I’ve begun writing, I’m a good portion through the first chapter of the first story. I partially achieved #5, where I at least got myself a passport so I could quickly and spontaneously visit the Bahamas (hey, it’s easier than most other costly trips) or go on a cruise, or a convention in another country if needed.

Everything else either required a lot of free time I never had (and possibly knew at the time I made the resolution that I wouldn’t have), or required other people to do things for me to make possible, like approving a story concept and setting up a book deal. That’s a lot of variables that are out of my control, and a number of those resolutions required a lot of free time and other people to do things to enable me to achieve them.

Actually, a number of hinderances came from not having much free time, and facing either sacrificing more sleep to achieve, or be so exhausted that I’d further exhaust and burn myself out to achieve. I don’t know about you, but when I’m burnt out, I don’t want to do anything. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not making excuses, I’m just pointing out what really happens.

Now, I’m not saying to give up and take life as it’s given to you. I’m just saying, from now on, I’ll be happy I can achieve things as I have time or money for.

For 2010: I will do the best I can, without stressing or tiring myself out or going further into debt, to improve my career, health and home.

And just like that, I’m not resolving to a shopping list of things or putting myself in a position to be disappointed, I won’t be stressed out that I only achieved some of them. I’ll be happy that I improved something, anything, and made a difference. Just not a specific difference. And I’ll do it while still being happy to spend time with my family and friends and puppy, and being able to relax enough that I won’t be burnt out doing it.

Not a bad idea… now let’s do it!

Happy new year, everyone!

I attempted to move my blog over to Posterous and then hastily decided to move it back here to WordPress on my server. FeedBurner, on the other hand, reposted all the content to the RSS.

Shouldn’t happen again

Hey everyone! It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten the urge to write on my blog, but this makes the cut: Although I haven’t officially announced it, I’ve launched a news site called All Things UNCHARTED that covers any news related to the UNCHARTED games and its upcoming movie.

To celebrate, we’re giving away TWO COPIES of UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves, which was just released in stores today! For your chance to win, head on over to All Things UNCHARTED for more information.

Please help me out by spreading the word! I’ll be writing a more formalized announcement on here later this week!