Resolve to Keep Those New Year’s Resolutions
We all know the routine for New Year’s resolutions: Commit
for three to six weeks then discard from memory. While this recipe for non-success sounds all too familiar to
many of us parents who are barely surviving each day, remember that setting
goals, in general, is a motivating and rewarding way to live life. For Type-A
personalities like mine, living my life by tiny little goals is essential. I must admit that making a list of
important tasks or daily to-dos just to check them off sort of keeps me going. By finishing things on my list
throughout the week I feel like a better professional and mother. Plus, it’s a great way to give myself a
pat on the back for accomplishing what I set out to do. If this sounds like a completely
ridiculous idea to you, that’s alright too. Some people find other ways to motivate themselves and stick
to their goals that don’t include lists or tasks at all; you just need to find
the best option for you. There’s
hope for all when it comes to setting out to change old habits and begin anew
for 2012!
Last year, my resolutions included the following:
Get in better shape and lose some holiday weight
This is one that I am fairly certain is on most people’s
list of resolutions, unless you are perfect, in which case you don’t even need
to be reading this. Anyhow, I managed to do this for most of the year and I did
even lose a few pounds but somehow managed to gain it back these past few weeks
– go figure. Ok, add to this year.
Keep track of and remember birthdays
Facebook has really helped me out with this one, but not
everyone I know is on Facebook, especially my little nieces and nephews and
most family members over the age of 60, so making an online calendar of
birthdays at the start of the year was the best thing I could have done. I used this service Birthdayreminder.com and was able to add in people manually if I wanted
too. I think I’m at about 90
percent on this resolution so I’ll transfer it over to this year also.
Organize my kids’ rooms and belongings
This is still a work in progress and will also be
transferred to this year. However,
I did make a decent dent in this one and donated lots of gently used items to
charity or friends and sold off the rest on Craig’s List or to second hand
shops throughout the year. Since children often accumulate things faster than
we can find places to store them, I expect this will make an appearance more
frequently on my list. If you find this is one of yours too and you have more
stuff than you know what to do with and no space to store it, try Bubble
Wrapped by, yours truely, Buggy Bubbles. You can store for a season, long-term
or until you decide whether you’ll need that baby paraphernalia for another
child in the future.
Spend more quality time with family
With two young children and a busy work life, this one was a
no-brainer; however I still needed to carve out time when I wasn’t answering
emails on my phone, cleaning the kitchen or reading while my kids watched Yo
Gabba Gabba to qualify as real “family time.” I have to say, this is an ongoing struggle, as I am sure
with many of you. Stay-at-home
parent or career woman, it’s still difficult to get those quality time moments
in with all the other things on your list. My solution – make it part of my routine. Every day, at least spend 30 minutes of
“real” quality time with my family.
I planned that reading and horsing around before bed without TV or phone
distraction would be the time to accomplish this. I’d say it happens most of the week, but reading with my
little ones snuggled on my lap in their jammies or hearing my little girl
giggle while playing “This Little Piggy” is worth the time invested, and is a
great way to end my day – love it!
So that was it for 2011 and I think those will all be on my
list again for this year, as none of those will ever be perfected I might as
well work on them some more. I’ll
also be adding journaling, paying off debt and working on my house more often
to the list as the front runners for the year. I’ll let you know how they go!
I leave you with my grain-of-salt, anyone-can-do tips for
making this year different and sticking to your resolutions:
Resolve to accomplish one of your goals each month.
If you decided to get more organized (one of my favorites),
shovel through one de-cluttering project per month until you feel that you are
forming some semblance of order in your home or office. Even the smallest of projects, such as
cleaning out a “junk drawer” or thinning down your closet of old college
t-shirts you’ll never wear again can make you feel cleansed and accomplished.
Make a list.
Ok, you had to know what one was coming. But seriously, saying your resolutions
and writing them down in plain view are two very different things. Once you ink it it’s permanent. List them, devise a plan and put those
resolutions in plain view. Want to
lose some weight, post it on the fridge or on your weekly shopping list. It might help, it might not, but it’s a
start.
Plan it!
I must admit, planning is essential to success in most
cases, but if you don’t find yourself to be the self-motivated planning type,
make yourself. Put reminders on
your calendar and stick to those annoying pop-up reminders instead of
dismissing. If you plan it out,
stick to whatever it is. If one of
your resolutions is to stick to plans this year, then there you have it.
Be your own inspiration.
This might sound like a stretch, but write yourself little
motivational notes to remind you of your goals for the year. Post them on your computer monitor,
send yourself an email, put them in your wallet or purse, or drop one in your
lunch sack for the next day. There
is even a service you can use to send yourself an email in the future to remind
yourself of things or how you felt on a certain day http://www.futureme.org/. It couldn’t
hurt to schedule those quarterly for a little gut check.
Buddy Up!
It’s not too late to get a friend to hop on the resolution
train. It’s a fact that people
stick to their goals when doing them with a friend or spouse. Grab a friend to
go to the gym or have a photo organization party with friends. Resolutions can be fun if you want them
to be.
You may have seen some of these tips before or have mapped
out your own plan for success this year already. Whatever you do, try to stick with it for the entire year or
at least until you can’t stand it anymore. We typically resolve to change things that we know are
things we should be doing anyway.
With a clean slate, this year is filled with opportunity and a chance to
be a better version of ourselves for at least several months. If you see my
better version bopping around town remind her that she has to do something
about her laundry routine this year – it’s a mess.
Article by Sarah Mitchell
Owner, Buggy Bubbles – OC