This allows him to set goals that are both instantly achievable and longer-term revolutionary.

The 2015 lineup included keeping in touch with overseas friends, getting his driver's licence, finally using the pasta machine he got years ago and being more vulnerable.

He reasoned it was grown-up to stop pretending that everything's OK all the time. By being vulnerable, he would have more genuine interactions with the people that matter.

Despite this understandable logic, vulnerability still makes for an unusual resolution. We tend to associate it with weakness. Or the likelihood of injury or attack. And so, spend our lives acting as though we have nothing to do with it.

Houston University social work professor Brené Brown has been researching vulnerability for more than a decade. The presentation she gave on the subject in 2010 is one of the five most popular TED talks of all time (beating "10 things you didn't know about orgasm").

In it, Brown says the difference between people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and those who don't is the "courage to be imperfect" and the capacity to embrace vulnerability.

"They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful."

She also found that modern humans tend to "numb" vulnerability as a way of dealing with the uncertainty of life. In the process, we don't just numb the bad stuff (fear, disappointment), we numb the good as well (happiness, gratitude).

In her 20-minute talk, Brown calls on people to be more vulnerable. She argues this will see us take more risks, but also be "kinder and gentler to the people around us [and] kinder and gentler to ourselves".

If vulnerability is avoided in the everyday world, it is even more taboo in politics – a land where it's all about inspiring election-winning confidence in voters and fending off attacks from enemies.

It follows that if your opponents are going to use focus groups and dirt units to dig out any mistake or insufficiency in your performance, why would you concede any weakness – however tiny – at all?

And if the media jump (with unabashed glee) on any inconsistency or quirk in your personality, why in sanity's name would you do anything other than hold the line as tight as you bloody well can?

So, we get politicians who say that everything is hunky-dory even when it isn't. We get politicians who don't apologise or concede a failure. We get bland. We get boring. We get bullshit.

Tony Abbott was by no means the first leader to inhabit this culture. But he has certainly embraced it.

Despite the fact that his prized paid parental leave scheme had zilch support in the party room or Parliament, he kept squeezing that $5 billion baby for years, insisting it was fine all the way.

When it came to the 2014 stinker budget, measures like pension cuts and the six-month wait for the dole were similarly clung to. They didn't work because of Labor and crossbench intransigence, he argued. Not because they were broken promises or policy duds.

This week, while giving yet another interview, Abbott was not in a philosophical mood when asked where he went wrong.

"Rather than dwell on what could have been done better," he told Sky News. "I'd rather focus on just what went right."

This concede-no-faults theme can be contrasted with Malcolm Turnbull's approach when releasing his innovation agenda on Monday. While promoting his "ideas boom", he encouraged Australians to get out of their comfort zones and take risks of the innovation persuasion.

"You know something? Even if their businesses don't succeed, we all benefit. We [have] learned so much from the failure of new businesses."

While he was at it, Turnbull suggested MPs should think bigger as well.

"One of the aspects of the political paradigm I'm seeking to change is the old politics where politicians felt that they had to guarantee that every policy would work," he said.

"They had to water everything down so there was no element of risk."

In doing so, he confessed that some of the government's yee-hah $1.1 billion innovation package might not fly.

"If some of these policies are not as successful as we like, we will change them. We will learn from them."

This is common sense. Governments deal with issues that are so complicated and so fast moving that it is ridiculous for them to guarantee success all the time. And it is ridiculous for voters to expect it.

Yet, Turnbull's comments seem (ahem) innovative because political debates are dominated by the idea that no one should ever get anything wrong or be unsure, while brutally punishing those who don't live up to this standard.

The Prime Minister's comments of course, are wily as well as unexpected. By massaging the expectations of voters, he buys himself wiggle room in the event that we don't suddenly become a nation of innovation bunnies.

But by admitting vulnerability, he's also treating people with a lot more respect than they've been used to (almost as if they are adults). Here's hoping it catches on in Canberra.

As for Matt? He says it's been worth it to show friends his weaknesses this year. He thinks they've felt more trusted and valued as a result.

But it's a slow process and there's more work to be done on vulnerability in 2016.

That, and he wants to learn about opera.