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I don't fight with my brother anymore either, but that resolution has been replaced by one to show more patience with the family members I live with now.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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
You nailed this one on the head, Melinda! Can I borrow the last line of your second-to-last paragraph (giving you credit, of course!) for my blog?
Oh, and I'd love to hear your sister-in-law's tips, too!
Be my guest. :-)
I hesitate to put words in Wendy's mouth, but maybe I can entice her to write a blog post about how she sets goals. If I'm successful, I'll send you a link.
Thanks!
I love to think about what to improve on in the new year, though I don't really write anything concrete enough to be a resolution. I also do the same thing around the first day of school (even if I'm not the one going to school) because I like the new beginning feel of that time of year too.
This year I have a small sheet I intend to print off each month to review my goals and progress each month. I hope the accountability will keep me tuned in and motivated. By the way, just read an interesting book called "Willpower" by Roy Baumeister and he talks about the benefits of self-monitoring in keeping goals.
I'd love to hear some of Wendy's tips too!
I think we stopped fighting (a lot) before you moved out of the house.
Post a Comment