A Sense of Doubt blog post #3606 - I Do Not Make New Year's Resolutions and Lists of January First Posts
I don't believe in New Year's resolutions.
The main reason is that I do not follow the herd. If everyone is turning left, I am apt to turn right just to be different, if not out of actual spite.
Another reason is that I do not an artificial reason to resolve to do something.
I am making resolutions all the time. I am setting goals. I am assessing the goals I set. I am thinking about what is possible and what is not.
Recently, I learned of a book that will be the subject of a future blog post (possibly yet this week):
But I do not get everything done.
I set priorities.
I used to think that the character of "Richard" in the movie The Big Chill was such a square, and he was mocked compared to the more colorful characters in the rest of the cast. But one of his big lines was "you set your priorities and that's the way life is." And he was right. I couldn't see that truth well in 1980, but I can now as I have been doing it for years.
Learning about Getting Things Done (GTD to the initiated), I realized that I already do the main concept: prioritize what has to be done, micro-steps, and then a list of projects. Long-term goals are not always met, but they can be remembered. Short-term goals are meeting deadlines and doing the daily things that must be done, such as cleaning the kitchen and making dinner, which is what I am about to do.
Get shit done.
That's been my motto since realizing I became an adult when I wasn't paying attention to how I had changed.
But in getting things done, set goals that are achievable and don't set goals just because everyone else is doing so, such as on January first each year.
It's easy to set a goal when we're not at work, things in the world are in a lull for the holidays, we're not driving ahead full bore. And grand, lofty goals that have not been achieved and still may not because the change needed to achieve them is so radical is not a recipe to feel good about yourself and to succeed.
That's just me, though.
Resolve things today if you want.
Don't feel like you have to.
Set intentions when you are ready to set intentions. Below is a shared article that re-iterates some of what I have written.
Also, below is a list of all the January First posts going back to the t-shirt blog and one from a January fourth in 2015 when I was not on a daily schedule and so there was no January First post, but close enough, it's like a January First post.
Thanks for tuning in.
FORMER JANUARY FIRST POSTS
- Ten Years of January Firsts
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Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Sunday, January 4, 2015
I know, not a January first.
But I wasn't blogging daily in January of 2015. After the t-shirt year ended in March of 2014, I tried to do weekly posts from then until July 6th 2015, two days after my died when I RESOLOVED to return to a daily schedule.
Friday, January 1, 2016
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Monday, January 1, 2018
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
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Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Friday, January 1, 2021
Saturday, January 1, 2022
and again.....
Sunday, January 1, 2023
Monday, January 1, 2024
And a share.... oh look, a counseling blog!
LOL.
Y'all know I am back to school for counseling, right?
Have you ever made a New Year’s Resolution? Have you ever kept a New Year’s Resolution? Chances are, if you have made them, you have also broken them. Why is this? We are sooooo motivated at the time we make the resolution that it seems impossible to fail. But fail we most often do. Here are the top 5 reasons we don’t reach the goals we set when making New Year’s resolutions:
#5 . The resolution is completely result focused.
#4. It is made at the peak of motivation.
#3. It usually involves an extreme change of habit.
#2. We expect ourselves to be perfect in this new behavior.
#1. We want immediate gratification, which sacrifices lasting change.
The best way to make permanent change is to focus instead on:
- What you value.
- Take small realistic process focus steps or habits to bring you toward what you value, or a goal aligned with what you value.
- Make it easier on yourself to keep doing this new habit and more difficult to stick to your prior habits.
- Lasting change takes time and patience.
- Give yourself praise when you follow the process, and forgiveness when you don’t. This is a very important step. Positive reinforcement, praise, makes it easier to continue on the journey toward your value related goal. Negative reinforcement, beating yourself up when you make a mistake, can go a long way toward forcing you to quit before you reach your goal.
For instance, if you want to lose 20 lbs:
- First ask yourself why this is important to you. If you want to live a longer, more enjoyable life and your doctor has told you losing weight would help get you there, then you have your why.
- Now that you know what is important to you about losing weight, slow and steady wins the race. What actions does a healthy eater take? Develop a realistic plan that allows for healthy eating and slow weight loss.
- Then carry out those actions in small steps. Plan healthy meals. Purchase healthy food. Have healthy food prepared and available. Remember, you are focusing on the process of being a healthy person, not how fast you can lose twenty pounds. The end result will be the product of the daily habits in this process.
- Make it easier to eat well than to eat the way you used to eat. Only buy groceries on your meal plan. Be intentional when dining out. Know what you will order ahead of time and only look at that part of the menu. Keep focus on who you want to be.
- Lastly, applaud yourself when you follow the process you have created. Create a reward system. Put a marble in a jar every day that you follow your process. This is a way to see one immediate result while being more patient for the longer term goal. This positive reinforcement is very important to your likelihood of continuing on long enough to establish your new habit of health eating. Just as important-don’t give yourself negative reinforcement. Don’t beat yourself up when you get off track. Be forgiving of yourself, and you will be more likely to get back on track.
Instead of new year’s resolutions, it’s more important that we ask ourselves regularly, “Who do I want to be and what do I want to stand for in this world?” then take action toward that, in small, doable ways that then become habits. Results are the outcome of small habits taken daily.
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2501.01 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3470 days ago & DAD = 126 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
- Days ago: MOM = 3470 days ago & DAD = 126 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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