It’s that time of the year when many people are creating New Year’s resolutions.

Wait, scratch that. We’re a week into 2015, so I think it’s more accurate for me to say: it’s that time of the year when many people have forgotten or given up on their New Year’s resolutions. After all, this guy from Forbes claims that only eight percent of people achieve their resolutions.

Why am I discussing this subject? Last semester, I was in a continuous “graduate student” state where I would read, read, take a few notes, attend classes, do homework, read more research papers, do odd hobbies on weekends, and repeat the cycle. I rarely got the chance to step back and look at the big picture, so perhaps some New Year’s resolutions would be good for me. And before you claim that few people stick with them, I also had New Year’s resolutions for 2014, and I kept my text document about it on my desktop. Thus, I was able to keep them in mind throughout the full year, even if I ended up falling short on many goals (I set the bar quite high).

For a variety of reasons, I had a disappointing first semester, so most of my resolutions are about making myself a better researcher. I think one obstacle for me is the pace in which I read research papers. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who relies less on lectures and more on outside reading in classes than most (Berkeley computer science graduate) students, so I was hoping that my comparative advantage would be in reading research papers. Unfortunately, to really understand even an 8-page conference paper that I need for research, I may end up spending days just to completely get the concepts and to fill in the technical details omitted from the paper due to page limits.

When reading research papers, it’s not uncommon for me to lose my focus, which means I spend considerable time backtracking. Perhaps this could be rectified with better reading habits? I’m going to try and follow the advice in this blog post about reading real books, rather than getting all my news from condensed newspaper or blog articles. (Ironically, I just broke my own rule, but I will cut back on reading blogs and arbitrary websites … and also, I came up with this idea about two weeks ago, so it’s nice to see that there’s someone who agrees with me.) Last week, I read two high-octane thrillers — Battle Royale and The Maze Runner — to get me back into “reading mode” and am moving on to reading non-fiction, scholar-like books. Maybe books will help me quit Minecraft for good (so far, it’s working: I’ve played zero seconds of Minecraft in 2015).

I’ve also recorded some concrete goals for weight lifting (specifically, barbell training), which is one of my primary non-academic hobbies. For the past four years, my motivation to attend the gym has been through the roof. I’ve never missed substantial gym time unless I was traveling. In retrospect, I think programs like Stronglifts and Starting Strength (which I loosely follow) are so popular because they generate motivation. Both use the same set of basic, compound lifts, but as you proceed throughout the programs, you add more weight if it is safe to do so. Obviously, the more weight you can lift, the stronger you are! I often juxtapose weight lifting and addictive role-playing games (RPGs), where my personal statistics in real life barbell lifts correspond to a hypothetical “strength” attribute in an RPG game that I continually want to improve.

Here’s a video of me a few days ago doing the bench press, which is one of the four major lifts I do, the others being the squat, deadlift, and overhead press. I know there’s at least one reader of this blog who also benches, and we’re neck-to-neck on it so maybe this will provide some motivation (yeah, there’s that word again…).

This is one set of five reps for 180 pounds; I did five sets that day. (The bar is 45 pounds, the two large plates on both sides are 45 pounds, and each side has two 10-pound plates and one 2.5-pound plate.) I remember when I was a senior in high school and couldn’t do a single rep at 135 pounds, so seeing these new results shows how far I’ve come from my earlier days. I’m definitely hoping the same feeling will transition to my research and motivation in general.

Motivation. It’s an incredibly powerful concept, and a must for graduate students to possess with respect to research.