I asked ChatGPT for my New Year's resolutions, and now I feel almost too seen

Date:
Mon, 29 Dec 2025 15:00:00 +0000

Description:
ChatGPT proves surprisingly adept at coming up with meaningful New Year's resolutions use this prompt to get yours

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New Year's Resolutions are often promised, rarely followed, adjustments, pivots, and goals that we cook up once a year to recognize our own shortcomings without actually doing anything about them. This is why I no longer make resolutions; they usually range from haphazard to blatantly unattainable, so what's the point?

I now realize that the only way you can cook up usable 2026 New Year's resolutions is if you start with some introspection, a true self-examination of the body, mind, and soul. Or, as I did, you could ask ChatGPT .

It's now been almost three years of prompt-based conversations with OpenAI's powerful chatbot, and in that time, I've gotten a lot of useful information, project assistance, creativity, and some entertainment from ChatGPT. And from me it's gotten, well, my essence or, depending on your perspective, my soul.
I resolve to use AI

On a whim, I asked ChatGPT 5.1 Pro:

"Based on what you know of me, can you suggest some useful New Year's resolutions for me?"

ChatCPT quickly spit out 10 proposed resolutions, and, if I'm being
completely honest, the insight was stunning.

To produce these goals, ChatGPT not only looked through our past conversations, but it also listened. Now, I understand how that sounds. ChatGPT is not a person; it's a generative AI system that uses large language models and powerful processing to dig deep into data, see patterns, find insights, and deliver them in a conversational form.

Even so, these resolutions had the effect of a real-life X-ray; they saw into and through me. Here's a compressed version of what ChatGPT shared with me:

1. Build Your Big Swing TechRadar Tentpoles

Resolution: Commit to four major tentpole packages a year moments where you blend tech, culture, gaming, entertainment, and your signature humor.

2. Create the Lance Ulanoff Annual Visual Canon

Resolution: Build a yearly collection of 12 visual pieces , one per month.

3. Finish One Long-Form Creative Project

Resolution: Choose one and commit to finishing a polished draft screenplay, treatment, pilot, whatever.

4. Reinforce Your Personal Brand Beyond TechRadar

Resolution: Launch a monthly personal newsletter or video series in your own voice.

5. Lean Into AI as a Co-Creator, Not Just a Tool

You already treat me like a collaborator scripts, games, fiction, renders, reviews.

Resolution: Make 2025 the year you systematize it.
Create a simple workflow.

6. Curate More Time for Lance the Human Being

You love long walks, seaside towns, quirky experiences, and traveling with Linda.

Resolution: Plan one meaningful trip per quarter , even small ones.

7. Grow Your Houseplant Collection With Intention

You love houseplants.

Resolution: Choose three hero plants to nurture this year.

8. Build One Public, Playful Side Project

Resolution: Create one quirky, delightful public project in 2025.

9. Protect Time for Your Wifes Milestones

Lindas 60th birthday is a big one.

Resolution: Have one shared experience every month that isnt routine.

10. Practice One Mindset Shift: Less Noise, More Signal

Resolution: Each week, identify one tech story worth caring about and ignore the rest.

I've removed some of the details (they are for me, after all), but I think it's clear that ChatGPT put some real thought into this. In fact, the more I looked at it, the more I wondered how it had come to these conclusions, and how it knew so much about my wife. You are what you prompt

Turns out that ChatGPT mostly only knows what you put into it, and I have talked with ChatGPT via prompts about all of these topics (yes, even the plants).

When asked, ChatGPT explained all the resolution sources and reasoning. Here are a couple of examples:

3. Finish one long-form creative project

Source:
Youve described multiple story ideas (Time-Traveling Mailman, Hindsight, Picard/Kirk) and often request scripts or treatments.

Why:
Youre someone with multiple unfinished but meaningful projects. A year-long focus on one creates closure and accomplishment.

9. Prioritize monthly shared experiences with Linda

Source:
You frequently reference your wife her birthday, travel planning, shared activities in meaningful ways.

Why:
Consistency in shared experiences has emotional impact and anchors your year beyond work.

ChatGPT also confirmed that it: Didnt search for anything Didnt pull external data Didnt reference outside sources about me Your questions, its answers,
our true selves

The quality of these resolutions and why they resonate with me is because, in a way, I built them. Through every conversation, every image project, every document, and image upload, I constructed a profile of myself within ChatGPT.

I was, in a way, secretly stating all of this: the need for time for my wife, my desire to follow more creative pursuits, and a desperate need to care for plants (okay, maybe not so much on that one).

In the early days of our collaboration, I worked with ChatGPT on movie
scripts and web-based game apps . I went on to ask about nature trails and romantic getaway ideas for a 60th birthday.

ChatGPT is simply telling me to follow through. These aren't resolutions, they're to-dos that I set out for myself over a three-year period.

I guess they become resolutions, though, because completion is not a given. Every year, there are things I hope to do, but somehow I never quite get around to them.

My ChatGPT New Year's resolution exercise is, though, a good reminder that there's a voice inside me that's desperate for me to follow through, to make good on every aspiration, and to make my wife very, very happy for her 60th birthday.

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/chatgpt/i-asked-chatgpt-for- my-new-years-resolutions-and-now-i-feel-almost-too-seen


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