My sister-in-law wrote about how she sets and follows through on goals at her blog. I'm busy this morning figuring out what specific steps I'm going to take this week to make progress on my resolutions.
My sister also wrote about resolutions yesterday on her blog. The title made me laugh and shudder. I was around 10 when Mom decided we each needed a daily dose of cod liver oil. Raspberries are much tastier.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
New Year's Resolutions
As a child, I loved New Year's resolutions. With the eternal optimism of youth, I determined each January that this year I would become perfect. I would clean my room. Not fight with my brother. Brush my teeth and say prayers twice a day. Write in my journal and read scriptures daily. As I entered double digits, I added lose weight and exercise to the list.
Of this list, I have mastered brushing my teeth twice a day.
I don't fight with my brother anymore either, but that resolution has been replaced by one to show more patience with the family members I live with now.
I eventually ditched New Year's resolutions altogether, in an attempt to relax and accept myself.
Then I decide to challenge myself to read 52 books in one year. Unlike many of my earlier resolutions, this one played to my strengths while stretching me to grow. Not only did I complete the challenge, I enjoyed it. Last year, I made a different soup from Sunday Soups each Sunday we were home. Although my blog posts failed partway through the year, the cooking continued, and I had fun discovering my buried cooking skills and developing new ones.
Neither of these goals felt like New Year's resolutions because they were fun and were things I wanted to do, not things I wanted to want to do. But maybe these were what resolutions were supposed to be?
I became fully committed to setting resolutions again this year as the result of a conversation I had with Michael's sister during our trip to Ireland. I have admired her accomplishments for years, but without giving a lot of thought to how she does so much. Learning more about how she sets goals and follows up on them inspired me to give it another try, but this time with some of the self-forgiveness and self-acceptance that I developed during my years off.
I'm still flawed, of course. Last night I wrote down some personality traits I'd love to leave behind and watched the paper burn to ash in the fireplace. As I finalize my resolutions today, there are still some that speak to impatience, procrastination, and a lack of mental presence in the moment. But these resolutions are gentler and more forgiving than in years past, and most of my resolutions focus on things I want to accomplish that keep getting buried in the minutiae of day-to-day life.
Here's to a great 2012.
Of this list, I have mastered brushing my teeth twice a day.
I don't fight with my brother anymore either, but that resolution has been replaced by one to show more patience with the family members I live with now.
I eventually ditched New Year's resolutions altogether, in an attempt to relax and accept myself.
Then I decide to challenge myself to read 52 books in one year. Unlike many of my earlier resolutions, this one played to my strengths while stretching me to grow. Not only did I complete the challenge, I enjoyed it. Last year, I made a different soup from Sunday Soups each Sunday we were home. Although my blog posts failed partway through the year, the cooking continued, and I had fun discovering my buried cooking skills and developing new ones.
Neither of these goals felt like New Year's resolutions because they were fun and were things I wanted to do, not things I wanted to want to do. But maybe these were what resolutions were supposed to be?
I became fully committed to setting resolutions again this year as the result of a conversation I had with Michael's sister during our trip to Ireland. I have admired her accomplishments for years, but without giving a lot of thought to how she does so much. Learning more about how she sets goals and follows up on them inspired me to give it another try, but this time with some of the self-forgiveness and self-acceptance that I developed during my years off.
I'm still flawed, of course. Last night I wrote down some personality traits I'd love to leave behind and watched the paper burn to ash in the fireplace. As I finalize my resolutions today, there are still some that speak to impatience, procrastination, and a lack of mental presence in the moment. But these resolutions are gentler and more forgiving than in years past, and most of my resolutions focus on things I want to accomplish that keep getting buried in the minutiae of day-to-day life.
Here's to a great 2012.
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