According to statistics on New Year’s resolutions, 8 percent of people are “successful in achieving their resolution.” This figure seems dishearteningly low. Yet people who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t. In other words, non-resolution-makers achieve their not-formally-expressed objectives only four-fifths of 1 percent of the time! This statistic would seem to support the time-honored tradition of making New Year’s resolutions.

Unfortunately, at least to me, a resolution connotes a dispiriting sense of responsibility, requiring a firmness of purpose to which I’d rather not have to commit. Therefore, in the spirit of self-fulfilling prophesy, I have decided to make predictions this year instead of resolutions. A prediction has an element of fate to it, as if it is inevitable and somehow supported by the universe. An individual might play a role in its occurrence, but there is the suggestion of co-participation with an invisible agent.

So here are my predictions, inspired by a combination of intuition and wishful thinking. In 2013, I will . . .

1. Make good progress on the first draft of my novel.
2. Schedule more sessions with my coach.
3. Set up a writing studio.
4. Really push myself to increase my belly-dance workout from 15 minutes to 20 minutes a day.
5. Stop saving leftover frosting for snacking.
6. Have a nice dinner with my husband in New York City.
7. Resume drinking pumpkin spice lattes around October 1.

If you are looking for ideas for your own resolutions (or predictions), you might want to check out this generator I came across. One of the first suggestions it gave me was, “I will frost cupcakes”—so I think it might actually know something!