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I ♥ Breaking Resolutions Comments Off

Filed under sister who?, yum food
Written by Annie on 4th Jan -10

greengirlstanding.

I ♥ Resolutions

Okay, I love New Year’s. It’s my favorite holiday. (I just realized that this year so I’m broadcasting it in hopes that the people I love will recognize and support me in my favoritism by buying me gifts for New Year’s, too. I mean, it’s the least they could do, really.)

I love making resolutions. I come up with a long list every year. Some years I decide not to go overboard, and I limit myself to something reasonable: 10 or, okay, 11 if I just can’t help it.

And yeah, I don’t keep them all. At all. Hardly ever. I goof, I fail, I mess up, I quit, I weaken, I have no willpower.

Except for this year. This is the year.
Right?

Making Progress? Really? (Or Is That Heartburn?)

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend, lately, despite my habitual resolution making and breaking: I’m actually making progress. I guess the endless repetition is finally getting to me. My resolutions are generally far bigger than can be accomplished in one year, anyway. (For example, #11 from 2005, “Prove global warming is a myth” and #6 from 2007, “If not a myth, figure out how to solve global warming.” That just takes some time, I don’t care who you are.)

I’m making progress. Don’t ask me how, exactly. I still do a lot of the same stupid stuff in the same stupid way (i.e., get mad at Joe for not reading my mind, expect my kids to get along with each other, stay up too late, eat too much, forget to work out, forget to call, forget to write, forget my name, find myself on the Amtrak headed to Toronto in early spring… oh wait, sorry, I just lapsed into a Mommy-escape fantasy there. Back to what I was saying.)

I still do the same stupid stuff, but I don’t do it quite as often. I still do the same stupid stuff, but I get over it quicker. And I’m happier. And maybe this has nothing to do with New Year’s and making resolutions at all. Maybe this is just me and where I am in life, and I just happen to be reflecting on it all as 2009 goes out and 2010 comes in.

The last 5 years have been a rollercoaster. More ups than downs, and crazy fun, but intense.

A Recap

2004:
January – Joe and I start courting. (And yes, I said courting not dating and I’ll go into that some other time but not here, goshdarnit, so just keep reading and don’t get bogged down in those little details.)
May - Joe and I get engaged.
September – Joe and I get married. I move to St. Louis, since, being married and all, we kind of want to be together.
2005:
Jan – September – We adjust to married life, we work together in the family business, we have fun, I miss my family a lot, I want to have a baby, I start worrying that I can’t get pregnant (no birth control! Hello!), I start writing more.
October – We’re pregnant!
December – We buy a house and move in!
2006:
Jan – June – Pregnancy and home ownership.
July – Mara is born on July 11. We have a wonderful home birth. She is beautiful. She is an easy baby.
2007:
Feb – We decide that Mara is so easy, we should have another. We’re pregnant!
May – I spend the entire month in MS to be with my Mom, who is not going to get better. It is the strangest experience I have ever had. Our emotions are as strung out as possible. I miss my husband.
June – My mom dies. I go back home. I am numb.
November – Robbie is born. Our son. I start getting unnumb.
December – We spend Christmas in Colorado. I think I was supposed to be born there, and live there, and we start plotting how we will move there.

2008:
April – My Dad gets married and my sister gets married, within a week of each other.
August – We haven’t figured out what causes this. We’re pregnant! My dad says, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I alternate between “YAY” and fits of “ohmygoodness-howcouldyoudothistome-whydidwethinkthiswasagoodidea-wearegoingtobeinsane-weareinsane-ican’tdothis-aaaaaaaaaah.”
2009:
April – Zeke is born. I think, “Third birth at home, nooo problem. It’ll be easy.” Haha, Andrea, haha. But he is beautiful, our little Ezekiel.
May – July – Our house, when did it start shrinking?
August - From out of nowhere  comes a new place to live. We move into “the parsonage.” It’s big. It has a huge stone fireplace and a sunroom and is on the 10 acres of church property, woods and fields and flowers and deer. I am in heaven. We rent out our house.

End Recap.

And here we are.
2010.
I think this is what I’m defining as progress, this feeling that I finally know who I am and am comfortable in that.

But don’t think for a minute I’ll stop making resolutions.  I’ve gotten way too good at it to quit.

Image courtesy of Sara. Nel.

New Year’s Success: How To Form New Habits Comments Off

Filed under the home
Written by Annie on 1st Jan -09

Image Courtesy of woodleywonderworks on Flickr.

Image Courtesy of woodleywonderworks on Flickr.

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man. ~Benjamin Franklin

Dream Big and Deep and Wide

If you, like me, can’t resist the smell of fresh paper, the feel of a pen, and the urge to make a list, you know that you’ll end up making your own list of resolutions. I think some resolutions are there simply to remind us of our dreams. It’s okay to make them vague and big and unmeasurable. Our souls feed on our dreams. Give them plenty of food.

Make Some Dreams into Actions

Some resolutions need to be kept, right? The one you made to exercise, because your blood pressure is higher than it’s every been, or you just never feel sexy anymore with those extra twenty pounds hanging around your midsection. It’s time to start feeling sexy again (or organized, or peaceful, or whatever it is).

How to Keep Your Resolutions

For each dream you intend to turn to action..

  1. Define the reason

  2. Make it trackable

  3. Make it public

  4. Keep a record

  5. Set up consequences (good and bad)

Define the Reason

You’ve got to know why you’re pushing yourself or you’ll just feel deprived and punished. Think about the rewards. Picture the goal, and remind yourself why it’s important. Think about what will happen if you don’t do this thing: what will you miss out on? What will you regret? When you’re old and looking back on your life, will you be glad you put this effort in?

Make It Trackable

Repeat these words to yourself: specific and measurable. Specific and measurable. Specific and measurable. You know this. Come on. This is Goal Setting 101. You can’t succeed at something like “exercise a lot.” How much is “a lot”? Specify, sister. “Exercise three times a week, for 20 minutes each time,” or “Walk daily for fifteen minutes,” or “Do an aerobics class at the gym four times a week.”

The only way you know you succeed is if you set up a way to measure your success.

Make It Public

The most powerful motivation may be internal, but there’s something to be said for the fear of losing a bet. Go around bragging about your resolutions, and you know your friends will tease you when you don’t keep them. Maybe it’s childish, but I’ll do a lot to avoid looking stupid. I might even exercise daily.

So make a bet with your brother, call up your best friend, email your Mom. Share your resolutions, talk about the changes you’re making, and find friends to join in with you.

Keep a Record

Blog, write, tweet about what you’re doing. Post your resolution list and talk about the one you’re going to work on first. Set up monthly challenges and track your success in a forum or on your own blog. Keep a journal. Use Joe’s Goals or another goal-tracking software. Mark your goals and your progress on your calendar.

Set Up Consequences

Use behavioral psychology to your advantage. If you achieve your goal, you get something you really, really, really want. If you don’t achieve your goal, you have to do something you really, really, really don’t like doing. You better make this part public, too, so you know you have to follow through.

Make it motivational. Don’t set up something you don’t really care about. “If I save $100 every month for three months, I’ll let myself, uh, go have a burger at McDonald’s.” Eccch, is that a reward or a punishment? Make it something good! And make sure you’ll feel it if you don’t follow through.

Don’t pansy out on your potential punishment. “If I don’t save $100 every month, then I won’t get to, uh, shave my legs for a week.” Big deal. You can wear pants. What will hurt? How about, “If I don’t save $100 every month for three months, then I have to cancel my iTunes subscription for the next three months.”

One at a Time

You can tackle as many resolutions as you want, but you’ll do better if you focus on one at a time. Make your goal date-specific, and once you achieve it, move on to the next goal. Why? Because taking on too much is overwhelming, and when you start failing in one area you tend to carry that failure over into other areas. Suddenly you’re going nowhere on anything you resolved to do. It’s hard to pull yourself out of a slump like that.

But if you focus on one at a time, you can put more effort and attention toward a single goal. You’ll be more successful, and that success will motivate you to move on and achieve your next goal. And if you fail, you’ve only failed at one thing. Learn from it, and move on to the next one at which you will succeed.

Related Material…

Great articles worth reading, all about forming great new habits:

Motivating Yourself to Exercise

Simple Steps to Change Your Bad Food Habits

What Would My 80 Year Old Self Tell Me To Do?

Teaching Good and Godly Habits

How to Make Good Habits Last

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Image Courtesy of woodleywonderworks on Flickr.

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