New Year’s Resolutions or Not?

Making New Year’s Resolutions has never played an important part in my life.  I find that sometimes putting down words of actions to take can cause me to not take action. I would rather celebrate last year’s successes which are done and in the “can”. They were thought about, acted on, and completed.

I have often been guilty of saying I am going to do something and not following through. I disappoint myself when this happens. I would rather plan a goal, carry out the steps and enjoy the success one step at a time no matter what date is on the calendar.  

For example, last year I decided that I wanted to go back to work.  I spent time researching potential jobs. I looked at working from home versus working out in the world and talked with people I knew and trusted about options. I discussed the idea with my husband and looked at how this action would affect our lives. After completing these steps, I applied for a position and happily was offered a job. The result is that I have a job that I enjoy, that contributes to our budget and that helps us to satisfy some of our mutual goals. I started this process in March of 2021 and in no way was it a “New Year’s Resolution”.

The average New Year’s Resolution is historically set aside by the third week in January.  It has no teeth or reward for completion.  In my opinion, it is simply a goal set with the New Year, not always well thought out and often discarded after a weak attempt at completion.

I think resolving to do something because the year changes without a plan of how to get there is setting yourself up for failure. To me, failure is when you lose your commitment to following through on a goal that sounded good when you raised your glass and toasted the New Year but lost its excitement as the New Year shifts into the redundancy of daily life.

Did I make New Year’s Resolutions for 2022? No way. Wait….  

Here’s my resolution:  It’s time to commit to stop doing things that don’t work for me. I’m looking forward to New Years Day 2023 looking back and celebrating my successes for 2022. I will have enjoyed resolving to go after my next goal when the time was right and having taken immediate and systemic action.

Happy New Year everyone!

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