Encouragement

It’s the time of year when everyone is taking stock of 2017 and making their big plans and commitments for the new year. And, yes, I’m making resolutions … cause, well, what would I have to blog about and make lists of this week if I didn’t!? (I LOVE making lists) BUT something else I have done the past few years, unintentionally, is given some statistics to the previous year … miles traveled, new cities visited, books that went unread, etc. So, I’m going to challenge you to make REVERSE resolutions! Here is the best example I can give … last year, I did NOT resolve to take my son to new places and big cities. BUT, upon reflection, Henry traveled...

For many years, I made New Year's Resolutions at the end of December or the beginning of January, and my pattern was pretty similar. I made some resolutions that I was excited about, but part way through January or February I struggled with keeping them. My internal dialogue went something like this. "That wasn't a realistic resolution; I should focus on other things instead." Then I would let it go and generally forget about it. After a few years of this, I decided that making New Year's Resolutions in general wasn't helpful, and I just stopped making them. Last year I did something different. I didn't do it at the beginning of January, but in the last few months of...

                                                                                                     December 31, 2017 Hello New Year! I am writing you this letter as a reminder to myself that you will be a year of renewal. I find myself coming to this exact same realization at the same time every year, the day before the next New Year. A list of all my ‘New Year’s Resolutions' and how to make myself be ‘The Best Me Possible!’ ready to go. As with all my lists, they seem to dissipate and lose their luster just after 1 week. Perhaps I misplaced the list or even forgot about it in all the chaos. Could it be possible that this list is not what I truly needed to be a ‘better’ version of me? Don’t we...

Last year, I made a PowerPoint presentation of my New Year's resolutions. I also made an Excel spreadsheet of all of the chores I was going to keep up with. There were sections for daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual chores. Lol. I can't remember what was on them, because I haven't looked at either of them in at least 6 months. I guess I could have looked at them as research for this post, but that would probably just make me feel inadequate. So this year, I'm going with the anti-New Year's resolution list. Here are a few things that I would pretty much really sort of like to do in 2018: Keep the average mpg in my minivan...

Resolution Déjà Vu Making New Year's resolutions seems like a rather solid idea of encouraging self-improvement, so I try to set resolutions each year. But the problem is that resolutions are almost always going to fail. I don't say this lightly: only about 8% of people who set resolutions are able to keep them through the end of the year! I have yet to find myself in that elusive 8% of people who keep their resolutions. Instead, I'm always a part of the 92% who just ... fail. This does not dissuade me each year from setting resolutions. The issue though is that I have resolution déjà vu. This seems familiar. Or, Hmm, I think I've set this resolution before and Hey, wasn't my goal last year...