New year’s resolution: to make resolutions

Sounds like an alibi, I know.  Resolutions seldom work because, unless you are committed to changing your lifestyle, they are usually short-lived.

Yesterday, I went to a dietitian for the first time in my life.  (No, my resolution isn’t to eat healthy.)  I wanted to get a practical understanding of  how my body interprets food, from the best in the business (in my area).  I learned more about my body and nutrition in that one hour of consulting than I have during my entire academic life.  It completely changed how I view food.  Let’s see how long I can maintain the effects of what I learned.

I learned another important lesson, though.  I learned about the value of hiring one-on-one consultants.  My resolution for this new year is to make resolutions.  I’m resolute to holding 6 meetings with experts in various fields that I’d like to get more knowledge about.  I’m still working to identify what those six are.  So far, my list is at 14, and growing.  The challenge is to narrow it down to just 6 (which works out to one meeting every two months; more than doable in terms of time and money).

My justification:
We invest hordes of money to purchase artifacts or invest in things – electronics to simplify our life, entertainment to occupy our free time, fitness equipment to live a healthy life, vacations to relax, IRAs to secure our retirement, etc.  However, have we ever invested to learn the proper way to use/do/engage these things?  Are we investing in our ability to learn how to learn?  It seems like a no-brainer to spend some money to have an expert teach us about the things we invest so much money into.

Of course, the challenge in all this is to find “real” experts.  There’s a million and one consultants out there in every field known to man.  Finding the best can make the difference between learning accurately and learning inaccurate or incomplete information.  It’s like clicking on the top ranked listing in Google versus a listing ranked #3 or #4.  The value of the top ranked listing isn’t proportionally higher than the third or fourth, it’s exponentially higher.

Then, the only challenge that remains is implementing it.  That’s the other half of the story (and arguably, the most important).