The Christmas season just blew by for my family and me, and just like the piles of snow have accumulated, a lot of forgotten chores, hobbies, dust, papers, and other crap have accumulated in my car, closet, house, and mind. As arbitrary as it may be, it seems like the "New Year" is arriving just as quickly as ever and just in time to save me/re-center me/prep me for all of the "stuff" it seems like I need to be/should be/want to be doing.
While it would be easy to curl up under a blanket right now and take a nap, I decided it will be just as good to take a minute to sit down with myself and mull over last year's abandoned New Year's Resolutions and think about what I really intend to incorporate or bring into my life as 2010 approaches.
Luckily I have a nice break from working at the school as well as a month break from my graduate program to begin to unpack all of this "stuff" I speak of. I feel lucky to have this extra time, but also recognize that more time might not necessarily make it any easier to accomplish what I choose to set out for. Many people argue that the excuse "not enough time" is not the true culprit behind failed New Year's Resolutions. Various studies estimate that of about 50% of determined New Year's Resolution Makers, that only 10% will realize their goal. What's with that? They say it is not the time, but the intention. And their talking true intention here. People always say, "Oh we should hang out" or whatever suggestion and while they might think they intend to, they really don't truly intend to follow through with it. It is the same with resolutions.
Well, as I have been noting from the book I was gifted for Christmas called, "The Life Organizer: A Woman's Guide to a Mindful Year," (which I highly recommend) most goals we set for ourselves are too vague or too big for us all to absorb/understand at once. We become easily turned off by the difficulty of the goal as well as the fact that we do not create a plan for how we can get there. For instance, rather than saying, "Be better with finances" as a goal, one might be better off rephrasing the idea to "Save $50 from each paycheck and put aside" or "Eat out no more than 4 times a month." Stating the goal in a more action-based way, one can realize how they actually can begin making steps toward their goal or maybe how difficult it may be for them. Or another example would be, rather than saying, in my life time I want to write a book or a good short story, one should make the goal of spending 2 hours a week free-writing, or more depending on what may work for the individual. Test it out and see what works. We must be honest with ourselves and our intentions and realize if we really want to do something or not. If we think the doctors say we should floss each day, so we make that our resolution, for a minority of people that might be enough ammo to work, but for most people we must have our own personal need or desire to help us follow through.
So for me what all this intention, resolution talk means is a couple of things.
1) I must make myself workable, somewhat tangible goals--which means that I can visualize how they might work into my lifestyle.
For example, last year I said I wanted to "learn something new each month." Well this was a little difficult to do in terms of keeping it to a month and it almost seemed unnatural because sometimes I would learn like 5 things in a month and then another month I wouldn't learn anything (in terms of a trade). Also, the vagueness of this goal made it hard to define what "learning" was for me, was it just trades or important life lessons too? Based off of this idea, this year I am making the commitment to take one Community Education class each time they come out with new class schedule. I started to do that toward the end of this year, and it has really been working out for me. So far I have taken Water Aerobics, Belly-dancing, and I have in the books now to take an Oil Painting class with Mpls. commmunity ed come end of January! While I was never a painter (actually pretty poor) I am looking forward at giving it another go!
2) On that note, I must have fun with the resolution and not judge myself about not reaching my goals. So many times people give up on something because it didn't work once. Well if you truly do want it to work, I'd say eventually we might in fact get there with a little persistence.
This goes for flossing (persistence). I know its slightly because the docs say I should, but more so because I do have a history of bad teeth in the fam, and I do need to do it. The problem is I just get so tired before I go to bed. Lame excuse, right? No, I mean there is a reason it is a problem for many people and I am sure this is part of it for some people. Well this year I am changing it up a bit. My goal for this year (since all of my conscious life I have been trying to floss my teeth) I am going to start by flossing in the morning time. Granted it might not be the best, it will be better than no flossing at all. Double pat on the back if I can do it at night, but for now, I am just going to work on doing it in the morning time when I am awake and have time. So here, rather than giving up, I have decided to find an action that will be more likely to succeed/happen that can bring me closer to accomplishing this goal. And hey I might fail miserably, but that's okay because I am being honest with myself and giving it my best go.
Now, I could go on and on, obviously and plan to privately later. I had a two-page list of resoultions last year, so some dissecting/revamping needs to be done, but I will not bore you further with these things for now.
For now I will just send you my good luck with revisiting your old resolutions and creating new ones from the old, or even ditching them completely if you choose to. If you have any good ones, feel free to share, I love hearing what people are doing.
Until then, cheers to a happy and healthy 2010!
<3
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