I decided to try something a little different with my resolutions this year to see if it would help me stick to them. Every year I come up with a list of 5 or 10 resolutions and every year I fail at nearly every single one. I’m pretty good at not beating myself up about it and the silver lining is that I can carry my unaccomplished resolutions with me into the next new year.
This year, however, I would like to take my resolutions a little more seriously and actually make some positive changes to my life. That is why this year I’m deciding to focus on creating habits instead of making a list of things that I will have forgotten about by February.
There are a lot of reasons resolutions can be hard to stick to: often they are too general, they aren’t measurable, they haven’t been broken down into simple enough steps, etc. But two of the biggest reasons that I’ve read about is that we often take on too many things at once (which is overwhelming) and we don’t give them enough time to become habitual parts of our routine (and we fall off the wagon, so to speak).
Many people suggest that in order to make something a habit you have to do that thing every day and you should come up with some sort of “trigger” for doing that activity. As I was thinking about my own daily habits the first one that came to mind is that I tidy my bedroom every day (the rest of my home is a different story). My trigger for this habit is showering. Every day after I’m finished showering and getting ready I go straight to my room, clean up any clothes that are lying around, and make my bed. I never think about it. I just do it. Similarly, I would like my resolutions to become habits that I do naturally.
For 2012, I’m going to focus on one habit at a time. I’m starting with flossing my teeth. I know, it sounds kind of silly, but I’m always thinking about how I really should floss my teeth every day for better health. It’s just so easy to put off until tomorrow or next week or before St. Patrick’s Day. Also, I think it’s a good idea to start with something small. Once I notice that flossing my teeth has become a normal daily habit, I’ll move on to the next thing.
I’m hoping that this focus on creating habits will help me check off some of the resolutions that turn up on my list year after year, and maybe next year my resolutions list will be much smaller or look completely different than it has looked for the past few years.
