Jon Pretty

With the goal of self-improvement, I made ten New Year's resolutions a year ago, and managed to keep seven of them. That return-on-investment makes me think it's worth doing again, so I'm hereby soliciting suggestions for ten resolutions for 2019!

Here's what I've got so far: 1. watch a movie or read a book 2. be in one place for 120 days (not necessarily contiguous) 3. run 1000km over the course of the year 4. only visit cafés which are independent Refinements or criticism of these are welcome!

But I need six more. I'd like suggestions which help me keep a healthy lifestyle/diet, and I'd like them to include things I enjoy, like learning languages and hiking. I like measurable things; watching my progress towards a goal is encouraging! And strict definitions are useful.

I'd like to ban "processed foods" from my diet but I don't have a good definition of "processed" allowing me to rule out the sort of "food" you find in a US gas station (long trips; bad planning; desperate measures!) while still letting me to eat, say, Wensleydale. Ideas, anyone?

I would also like to improve my French, German and Polish. My best idea was to aim for a certain vocabulary size (which I could measure with Anki). I thought a target of 2500 French words, 1000 German words and 500 Polish words would be a reasonable target. Any better ideas?

Wildcard suggestions are good, too! Last year someone suggested meditation, which I hated and was one of my failures. But I liked the suggestion, and I'm willing to try most things, though they do have to fit in with my itinerant lifestyle. Looking forward to the suggestions.

Do you play any musical instrument? Perhaps a goal could be learning to play 1 new piece a month, either on an instrument you already know how to play with or a new one