As I sit alone at my dining table, papers piled and sprawled over its surface, and working on my second brandy eggnog, fireworks have started. In Washington, you can get the real thing: grade-A, light up the sky and terrify all the neighbor’s dogs stuff. Naturally, everyone in their right mind starts setting them off around 6 PM.

The herky-jerky ratta-tat..tat….rattle is nothing compared to the armageddon soundtrack that’ll signal a brand new year in just a few hours. I happen to be on the water, and smack dab between 3 major city displays. Poor dogs.

I was never very good at resolutions, and hence gave them up roughly ten years ago. Why make promises you know you don’t intend to keep? Instead, I liked to spend the 31st like most twenty-somethings: mind blowingly drunk.

I was the girl who hit up two or three parties and clubs on New Year’s, too intoxicated to remember which one I was at, and which one I had left my car at by around 11 PM. I usually bummed a ride home and then had to play detective and bum another ride the next day to retrieve it. Good times.

When the time came, if I was still capable of standing and not ralphing in a corner somewhere, I was either locking lips with my chosen mate of the time, or some random stranger who was not busy locking lips with someone else. Many cheers, hoorahs for another year, and God-forsaken hangovers were had. For sure, there’s no better time than your twenties to be a lunatic.

It’s funny to think that just a few years later, I would prefer to sit alone in a quiet room, nursing eggnog.

In 2014, I’ll be turning 30. As my induction into the Wise Old Sage club, I’m reimagining the future of my business, my life, and my self-growth journey. I may have given up resolutions years ago, but I have never given up the desire to experiment, change, and grow constantly.

The last two years, I decided to do a monthly goal instead of resolutions. One month I’d decide to work out every day, the next I’d go on a technology fast, and so on. Some of my months over those two years were repeats, either because I failed miserably the first try, or because I loved the results so much I wanted to relive the experience.

From these little dedications, I’ve developed a more healthy (and consistent) writing habit, discovered many new books and authors to love, honed and learned new skills, and gotten a better sense of what it important to me and what is just noise. It’s been a fantastic run that I plan to stick with this year as well, but the entire thing is mostly near-sighted.

I’m a sucker for instant gratification. Call it ADHD, call it a side effect of our culture, call it whatever you like: I get bored and lose focus as quickly as any two year old on a bad day. Yet, somehow, I’ve managed to maintain a steady freelance career for the last seven years, and two years ago even started my own business. It’s in the interest of changing “steady” to “thriving” that I sit at this table.

So this year, my monthly goals will be working in harmony with my long-term goals. I love the thrill of mapping my wants and desires with solid steps to take, and seeing it all come together so messily. Many would like to see it come together neatly, but many would probably like millions of dollars to rain from the sky, too. Judging by the spread in front of me (some of which has now made it to the floor), I’m going to assume the second wish is the most likely.

In fact, most of life doesn’t come together neatly. The beauty of this year, the next, and all the ones that follow is that punches are thrown, mountains are presented, and pits of despair await. But we roll with them and with focus, maneuver our way forward, anyway.

However you choose to bring in the new year, I encourage you to put more thought into your direction for 2014 than a dusty list of the same old resolutions. For God’s sake, if your happiness lies in a cold pizza and chocolate ice cream, throw out the word “diet” already. 2014 promises to be a hell-raising year. Many of us are running to greet its razor edges, burning rejections, and sweet victories with wide arms.

I’m hope you join us.