Happy New Year to everyone out there in Cyberland. If you have followed me for a while, or have scrolled through my old posts, you know that I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. Those are just ways to set yourself up for failure, and I am not about setting myself up for failure.
My New Year's routine usually consists of sitting in a quiet area with a journal. I sit quietly and think about all of my highs and lows from the last year, I write about them, what led to the highs, was there a way to prevent the lows from happening. After ruminating about the last year, I start to think about how I envision the next year. What do I want to see happen? What do I want to avoid? This process is all free thought and free flow, so it is quite the mess of words and drawings on the page. Once the thoughts, feelings, and energy has finished pouring out of me, I take a few minutes to read back over my ramblings and try and make sense of it all. I don't force a resolution out of it, I just let it be. I may look back on it a few times throughout the year to see how things are comparing, but that's not even a guarantee.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have goals and ambitions for yourself, you definitely should, there is no doubt for that. It's just something about saying "THIS IS MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION" that seems to set people up for failure. I think that it's because they always seem to be these big huge abstract ideas: I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to eat better. I'm going to start a new career. I'm going to drink less. I'm going to exercise more.
Instead of then sitting down and charting out exactly how to achieve these lofty, and often healthy, ideals people assume they can wing it and make it work. If you want to make a New Year's resolution, go right on ahead. But I would sincerely suggest that if you do, you go about it using the SMART method. What's that you say?
S-Specific M-Measurable A-Achievable -Relevant -Time bound
So, instead of "I'm going to lose weight." You might say, I am going to lose 30 pounds by March 1st.
And that's just the first step of making sure that you achieve your resolution. The next step is to break the full resolution into tiny resolutions. And set a plan of action in place to make it happen:
"I am going to lose 10 pounds by January 31. To do this I am going to switch 90% of my sugary drinks with water, eat at home 75% more of the time, replace sweet snacks with fruit 50% of the time, start keeping a fitness/food journal, and walk at least a mile 4 times a week."
See how much more exact that is than, "I am going to lose weight this year"?
Anyway, wherever this year takes you, may it be filled with love, laughter and peace,
Kris