Everyone knows what comes after Christmas. You knew it was coming before Christmas arrived, but now it is staring you in the face. No, not the post-holiday clean up (surely you are all cleaned up by now anyways, right??? Riiiiiiight???!?) and not the inevitable looking around the house in bewilderment and wondering what do do with they sudden influx of stuff your house has to deal with. Not the sugar detox, not the decoration putting away party. While all these things are coming or have come, I am talking not talking about these. I am talking about the new year. Ah, 2015, its been fun, but her is a bright, shiny, yet untouched New Year!
For the longest time, I didn't take new years resolutions seriously. In fact, I had the same new years resolution for many years running that I could break and keep all at the same time. "I resolve never to make another new year's resolution." And I kept it until the next year when I would break it by making the resolution again, but I never really broke it because it was the same one. See the way my mind was working here? I was about... 17 or so when I came up with this and thought myself desperately clever. My 26 year old self rolls her eyes.
I still take new years resolutions with a grain of salt. Yes, I am sure you will lose 100 pounds. Of course you will go to the gym every day of 2016. Naturally, it will be the easiest thing in the world to write a book about... what was it you said again? Yes, if anyone is going to solve the problems of string theory, it will be you. Lured by the promise of something new, people try to remake themselves every single year, and every single year they are disappointed when they fail. Many start off the new year determined, but still with a seed of resignation in their heart, knowing that they will trip up all over again. I know that not all people out there are total defeatists, but come on, y'all, don't we all feel that way a little bit sometimes?
There is also the matter of what do you most want to change? Will this year be about health? (lose some weight? start working out? become a vegetarian?) Will this year be about your artistic passion? (write that book? paint a masterpiece? learn to play the bagpipes?) Or maybe it will be about personal growth? (meditate daily? do a year long devotional?) There are literally infinite possibilities- infinite categories in which you can better yourself.
But this year, I am once more hopping on the new years resolution bandwagon. And I have decided to work on improving not 1, not 2, but 12 different areas!
Whoa, now, slow down! If doing just 1 thing for 1 year seems impossible, how can you possibly expect to do 12 things for 1 year?
Well, the goal isn't to start off all at once on January 1st, trying to change my spending habits, AND my sleeping habits, AND my workout habits, AND my eating habits (you get the idea) all at once. The idea isn't to change all at once... that would be exhausting and defeating and there is just no way, people. There is. Just. No. Way.
But according to research (that I haven't done, but I think I've head or read about somewhere) says that it takes (about) a month to create a habit. So what I would like to do is spend one month working on a change, integrating it as a part of my life, and then the next month, try to integrate different habit, so that by the end of the month, I'll have made 12 changes in as many months.
I have been thinking about what I'd like these to be, and while I have a good idea, I haven't totally planned it all out yet... So while my husband and mother-in-law are taking the kiddos to look at alligators in the everglades (we're on vacation in Key Largo... did I mention that? Its so nice out you can positively taste the sunshine! What a change from rainy Pennsylvania!) I am going to have a think, work on a plan and write some more tomorrow. Till then!
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