New Year’s Resolutions
One of my favorite parts about the new year is the fact that I get a new chance. I get a chance to make this year better than the last. I like the feeling that I have a chance to improve. However, sometimes I find that figuring out a good New Year’s Resolution is harder than actually following through.
Every year, it seems that I make a mental list of things that I want to change in my life. Be it my food choices, or my computer time, or how much I play outside, or how I treat my family, I always have a long selection of New Year’s Resolutions. For the first few days, I am excited about fulfilling my resolutions. By the end of the month, however, I seem to have lost steam, and I don’t think about them as much.
Standards and Challenges
Part of the problem that I create for myself is that I set impossibly high standards. Instead of just saying, “I want to eat healthier foods”, I say, “I want to only eat any junk food on Saturday, and then, only one bite”. Instead of saying, “I want to be more patient with my siblings”, I say, “I want to never yell at my siblings ever again”. When I can’t meet these standards, I get discouraged and give up.
Another problem I encounter when setting resolutions is that I don’t give myself a high enough challenge. I might say that I want to empty the dishwasher every morning, which wouldn’t be a bad resolution if I didn’t already do that. Or, I’ll give myself the challenge of getting better grades, which again, is not a bad idea, but since I’m already achieving acceptable grades, probably not an appropriate goal for my situation.
Guidelines
Lastly, I often don’t provide myself with enough guidelines for these resolutions. I might come up with a solid, good resolution, like keeping my room presentable, but if I only say that, without some kind of rule or system, I’ll forget about it. After a while, I’ll get bored, and start slipping, and before you know it, my room is once again a disaster area.
Difficult vs. Achievable
New Year’s Resolutions can be hard. They have to be challenging enough to be difficult, but simple enough to be achievable. They have to have enough guidelines to be easily remembered, but not overly complicated. It can be challenging to even come up with a resolution at all. Just remember, no matter what you decide to work on, New Year’s Resolutions should be about improving your life for you, not because you want to be doing something everyone else is. And just because one resolution doesn’t stick, that doesn’t mean that you can’t try another. After all, improving your life is something that should be done year round, not just in the beginning. See you next week!
“Reprinted from Hagel Publications, Inc. dba as Courier Newspapers”