Take a deep breath, smell that? It’s the fresh scent of a brand new year! For those of us fortunate enough to be blessed with a January birthday, it’s a new year and new age all within the first month!
So, what’s next? Did you make any new year’s resolutions? I think we all ask ourselves this question and sometimes we come up blank and other times, we go with the standard “Well, this year I am going to lose those 15 pounds that are really bothering me and I am going to go to the gym everyday to make sure they go away and stay gone. Then I am going to start saving more money for a house, car, retirement – whatever it may be. Could it be our resolutions don’t really mean anything to us because we have become “jaded” by life and it’s easier to do nothing than to try something and fail yet again?
Is that why by the middle of February, we have a half eaten bag of “Cheeto’s” and a box of “Twinkies” sitting next to us on the couch, as we “Netflix and chill”? Somehow, it seems life suddenly got a lot crazier than we ever expected, and well, the gym is over-rated and it’s too crowded… with work, bad weather, and other social happenings…suddenly it’s “really, are a few ‘Cheeto’s’ and ‘Twinkies’ going to make that much of a difference anyway?”
It’s definitely easy to fall off the resolution bandwagon, especially as singles because if we don’t choose to tell anyone about our resolutions, we’re the only person we have to be accountable to. When we have an accountability partner, it provides more incentive to follow through with our goals and desires for the New Year – it’s a recipe for success, not disaster.
When it comes to succeeding with our resolutions, I believe it is a twofold equation. First the old adage comes to mind “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Keeping our resolutions is a matter of planning around our excuses and mapping out a way to really “make it happen!”
Second, excuses aside, there will be times when life gets in the way of our plans – or as John Steinbeck wrote, “The best laid plans of mice and men…” in the instances where circumstances truly rule the day, we need to be willing to give ourselves some much needed grace in life. This being only the second day of January, I need to be willing to give myself some grace for not completing my “morning pages” – one of the things I wanted to incorporate into my routine this coming year.
Frankly, when I woke up this morning, I had completely forgotten about the desire from the day before to start my morning routine writing about whatever was on top of my head! In conjunction, I have a nominal goal of writing 500 words per day. This is actually a very low number, but I also know it’s attainable. Here is where grace applies, I did not accomplish one goal (morning pages) but I will hit over 500 words in this blog post! We need not beat ourselves up if we don’t hit the mark exactly as we prescribed to ourselves every day.
So, here is what I and perhaps you as my reading audience need to do in order to make sure 2018 is a stellar year and make sure we stick to our resolutions like super glue to fingers!
- Write them down! Goals, dreams, desires and resolutions etc
- Tell someone, ask them to help keep you accountable this year.
- Give yourself grace – but not excuses!
- Make sure your goals and such are ones that excite you!
- Create a “Habit Tracker” to document your progress – vision works!
Let’s come back together next January second and see how we did on our resolutions to make 2018 our year!
Single Slice of Cheese 