It’s almost been a month since 2013 ended. How many resolutions did you make? How many did you keep? According to FranklinCovery statistics, 35% of people will already have ditched their resolutions by now.
I made a few. Eat healthier, exercise more often and write a little every day.
My eating has gotten better. Not by leaps and bounds, but I’m a believer in taking steps. I’ve always felt that going “cold turkey” (where did that saying ever come from?) is s near guarantee failure.
I’m proud to say I exercise a lot more often since the new year. I worked out consistently through most of 2013, but after I broke my arm in early December I mainly sat around crying in my beer. 2014 brought me back to working out almost daily.
The writing is where I’ve slacked off. Considering how important writing is to me, it sure gets pushed to the side easily enough. Freelance work, home repair, favours for friends and even the working out I mentioned earlier have all pushed writing out of the way, leaving my creative juices drying out for days at a time.
Though I’m not happy with my writing in 2014, I’m not giving up.
Most people’s problem with keeping resolutions is not being 100% certain what you’re resolving to do. If you don’t have a few spare hours a day to work out, don’t make that your resolution. Don’t make a resolution out of something that “would be nice” to accomplish, even if it seems unlikely. In fact, don’t consider any resolution as something that “would be nice.” Consider your resolution a “needs to get done.”
Choose something that you know you can do but aren’t doing now. A lot of people might think that a mistake. Why choose a resolution that’s easy to do? Resolutions aren’t for challenging yourself unless you mean to challenge your own laziness.
If you’re like me and you have a resolution that isn’t going very well, now isn’t the time to despair, and it’s not the time to say, “Well, I’ve already screwed it up, I might as well jump ship.” It doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. There are other ways to look at it.
Keep at it – Just because you’ve missed a day or two, or even a week or two doesn’t mean you can’t pick it back up. No one ever said you can only start doing something on January 1st. Gyms may see a membership boom in January, but there’s just as many people that sign up in the summer when they realize they don’t fit into last year’s bathing suit anymore.
Change it up – Maybe you were a little too over zealous. If your resolution was too much to handle take it back a step, but keep it in the same vein. Don’t have time to work out for 2 hours a day the way you resolved? Pull it back to 1 hour or 45 minutes. Even 20 minutes is better than nothing, isn’t it? I know, eating a Snickers bar is even better, but we’re getting off topic.
Resolve to do it later – Things come up that take you off track. A broken arm, just as a random example. If this is the case, don’t just give up. Set a new start date when your obstacle will have been taken care of.
If it’s something that’s good for you, find a reason to keep going. There’s no reason to be part of the 35% that have already quit on their resolution. And if you didn’t start anything for the new year why not start a mid year’s resolution?
Oh! I know this feeling! 2014 has been absolutely NUTS for me. I promised myself at the end of 2013 that I would take on no more editing jobs in 2014, because I just wanted to write.
Not only have I been roped into editing for one job, another has decided that they want me to edit something that I have basically no organic interest in (other than the desire to support my friends). By the time I finish all these editing projects, 2014 is going to be half gone. It’s a very disappointing feeling. 🙁