Putting a Tennis Spin on a New Year’s Eve Tradition

Fiend at Court Unplugged

The Fiend at Court household celebrates New Year’s Eve in a somewhat unorthodox fashion. I am not a big fan of large parties, and staying up late. As an engineer who regularly deals with risk management on a professional basis, I cannot suppress the observation that New Year’s Eve is a terrible night to be out on the roads. All the amateur drunks are out at approximately the same time. What could go wrong? Hence we celebrate each new year quietly… and much earlier in the evening.

Many years ago I read about a small group of people that gathered every New Years Eve with a celebration that was very much goals centric. They discussed goals set the previous year and set new ones for the for the coming year. I can no longer recall precisely where I first came across the description, but I am pretty sure it was in a cooking magazine. Good ideas can be found in many places

The magazine version of the gathering included some of the traditional trappings of New Year’s Eve. Good food and alcohol in moderation was an explicit part of the celebration. Additionally, goal setting through resolutions is a traditional aspect of ringing in each new year. What sets this particular practice apart from pure tradition are mechanisms of continuity and accountability.

Our New Year’s Eve celebration is broken up into two phases. The first is reflecting on goals that were set the previous year. The magazine version included a set group of friends that met annually and thus were cognizant of the objectives everybody had set the previous year. The knowledge that the outcomes have to be publicly shared is a powerful motivation to keep things on track. Additionally, a good group of friends are not likely to let you delude yourself.

At a certain point in the evening the second part of the celebration starts: Setting goals for the coming year. Midnight was the time described in the magazine, but in the Fiend at Court household we use a formal evening meal as that inflection point. I am not a night owl and typically don’t stay up past midnight on my own volition.

In the Fiend at Court household we have been using this method of New Year’s Eve observance with participation limited to our immediate family. That means that we can get fairly detailed on our personal goals. Since the Trophy Husband started playing tennis, it is not uncommon for tennis specific goals to work their way onto our plans. This blog was born out one such goal to “write a page a day about tennis” throughout 2020. I feel like I continue to hit that one out of the park.

I have found the period of reflecting on goals that didn’t go so well to be tremendously valuable. Sometimes failure is due to events outside my control. For example, in 2020 I was committed to playing one of the National Grass Court Cat 1 tournaments that was cancelled due to the pandemic. The year I decided to bring back the kick serve from my junior playing days, caused an immediate rotator cuff injury.

Reflection on lack of attention to a goal frequently produces insight. Through the years I have discovered that things I claim to want but never actually follow through on are simply not important to me. Some decisions are obvious when confronted with that data.

Tennis related goals are a small subset of what we lay out for ourselves. They generally fall under the general category of Health and Fitness. Other broad categories that are generally considered are Financial, Career, Mental, Family, and Household. That level of granularity and detail is only possible because we do this practice only within our immediate family.

If you are looking for a meaningful way to celebrate the New Year, I highly recommend turning it into an annual goal setting event including mechanisms for accountability and continuity. My own life would be rudderless without it.