How Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg uses New Year's resolutions to improve himself

Robert Galbraith/Reuters

• Mark Zuckerberg made his first public New Year's resolution in 2009 when the economy had tanked and Facebook wasn't profitable.
• Since then, he's used New Year's resolutions to improve himself in all sorts of ways, from learning a new language to meeting new people.
• Here's the full list of his resolutions. It serves as a reminder that it's not too late for anyone to start a New Year's resolution of their own.

Every year since 2009, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has challenged himself to "broaden my perspective and learn something about the world beyond my work at Facebook," he once explained. His tool of choice? A New Year's resolution.

Zuckerberg just announced his 2018 resolution and this time it is focused on his job. This year, he wants to fix Facebook's hardest problem: ending the abuse of its platform, whether it's election interference efforts, fake news, or other nefarious practices.

This follows his 2017 New Year's resolution to meet someone from every state in the US. He made this resolution after the toxic 2016 presidential election, when many people blamed Facebook for its role in the nation's divided political discourse.

Last year, Zuckerberg's resolution took him on a tour of the country that included visiting the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., a site of a mass murder by a white supremacist; meeting recovering opioid addicts in Dayton, Ohio; and hanging with a diary farmer in Blanchardville, Wisconsin.

His first resolution, back in 2009, was also focused on his job. It was to wear a tie every day. "That first year the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and I wore a tie every day as a reminder," Zuckerberg explained.

But many of his resolutions focused more on personal growth - the kind of resolutions that any of us might make. Here's the full list, in case you need inspiration to take on a New Year's resolution of your own.

2009: Wear tie daily
2010: Larn Mandarin
2011: Be a vegetarian or only eat meat if he killed the animal himself.
2012: Code daily
2013: Meet a non-Facebook person every day
2014: Write a thank-you note daily
2015: Read a book every two weeks
2016: Build an artificial intelligent app for his home and run 365 miles
2017: Meet someone from every state
2018: Focus on fixing Facebook's abuse problems.