I find New Year’s Resolutions incredibly hard to keep up with. As mentioned, a tremendous lack of self-discipline scuppers me repeatedly. Start with the best of intentions annnnnd then nothing from about January 18th onwards. I will revisit something about March, throw everything into it for a week and then park it, never to be spoken of again. Until the following New Year, when the cycle of life continues.

There is nothing to indicate that this year is going to be any different, apart from a growing sense of by own mortality. I am starting to forget things with increasing regularity. I make noises when I stand up. I am at the age where adverts on the television seem more catered towards me – life insurance, SAGA holidays, “go and get this part of you checked otherwise you will DIE”, that kind of thing. The warranty on my back appears to have run out, judging by the number of times I have had to visit the chiropractor and have him make noises with my back that sound like someone standing on a cockroach.

So, I sit here on day two of Doing Stuff (and I’ve made it to day two, get me!). We were in New Zealand for Christmas and New Year, visiting my wife’s family. It was lovely, the weather was lovely, the people were lovely, the Butter Chicken Pies were lovely. We were visiting one of my sister-in-laws, and she had a piece of card sitting on her coffee table. Set out in a grid, exactly the same as a bingo card, just with writing on instead of numbers. My wife noticed it first and asked about it. Enthused, the sis-in-law told us about their 2025 Bingo Card. A five-by-five grid with all their challenges, goals, and dreams for the year past. Successfully completed tasks had a big cross through them, the aim being to complete lines in any direction and, ultimately, the entire card.

Honestly, never have New Year’s Resolutions looked so inviting.

A date was set, just after New Year, for us to visit again, and have a mass Bingo Card Crafting Session. I spent a few days actually preparing, and noting on my phone a few things I wanted to achieve during 2026, so that we it came to constructing my grid, I could spend more time on aesthetics rather than wording (I was rather proud of myself for this level of forward-planning, which meant I could help the others out by drawing their grids for them using a specific set of measurements I have worked out). The only decision to be made was where to insert my tasks on the grid. Following suggestions from the sis-in-law, I put the hardest to complete challenges in the corners (as that would affect more of the lines on the bingo card), and the easiest one in the middle. Everything else randomly thrown at the grid, trying to avoid clustering similar tasks together.

It was a family event, so my wife, daughter, and my other sister-in-laws all had an evening together setting out our battle plans for 2026. Takeaway was ordered, advice was sought from the elders who made their way through 2025, and my daughter gave everyone gem stickers to pimp their bingo cards up. After several hours, everything was completed, and the legally binding contract of beating 2026 was signed. One thing that was agreed upon by all – saying that you were going to do something this year is easy to do, but easier to give up on. Writing it down (in such a colourful and fun way) makes it feel more…real? As in, you’ve written it down, you’ve committed to it once already, it’s a permanent visual reminder on the side of the fridge of what January 3rd you thought was achievable. And I don’t want to let that person down.

My aims for the year? Pretty bang average I think. Going to fifty football matches is doable. I’ve done it before (first year post COVID). Attending fifteen grounds that I’ve not been to before is also easy enough combined with the fifty games. Finishing building a ukulele that is in the cupboard – sanded, not yet painted – is a fun thing to do with my daughter. Ten gigs? No problem as I’ve got four in the diary already. As for running 20k a month, only injury will stop that one from happening. Hopefully.

Other ones such as “keeping a journal/blog”, well, you can see how well that does I guess during the year. Getting down to 12 stone in weight IS a tough ask, but in the words of the Inspiral Carpets “No one ever said it was gonna be easy” before Mark E Smith rambled away about the Dutch East India Tea Company for reasons unknown (“I Want You” for those who haven’t a clue on this reference – go and look at the Top Of The Pops clip for this on Youtube. Smith forgets the words halfway through, so has to read from from a piece of paper he pulls out of his pocket). “Take Daughter To A Gig” has been on my mental bingo card for a year or two anyway.

Those corner tasks, the ones that will keep me up at night, are doable if I can sort my life out. Top left – read 25 books (which should be fine as last year I purchased about that many books and read two of them). Bottom left – restart driving lessons, which really is a Big Thing, and was met with a small cheer from my wife. Bottom right – study for ANY qualification. Could be challenging depending on what qualification I choose to go for (my brain is split on whether appeasing that passive-aggressive owl from DuoLingo and passing a few levels on Chess actually counts). Top right – where I like to place my penalties in football, and also Finish Draft Of Book. A massive challenge. There is a draft of a book on my laptop, up to about 30,000 words that has been sitting there for a year now. As the content of the book also has a relative expiry date on its relevance (it’s non-fiction), that one really does need to be squared away soon.

The easy square in the middle? The lowest of low-hanging fruit. Reach May, Turn 50. Well, that’s the plan anyway….