Resolve to avoid making any resolutions

Here we are embarking upon a brand new year.

Every year we resolve to change something about our lives and home and every year we set ourselves up for failure. I don't ever want you to feel this kind of defeat again. This is why I have come up with a New Year's resolution that is going to change your life forever.

My New Year's resolution for you would be to never make another New Year's resolution. I want you to be good to yourself this year. Setting yourself up for failure by making broad resolutions just means in three weeks you are going to be beating yourself up. This has to stop.

In January 1999, I made my last New Year's resolution. I woke up like every other red-blooded American female and resolved to get organized. I had said these same words for every new year I could remember as an adult. That year I figured out why I had never accomplished what I set out to do! I would start out gung ho and in a couple of weeks I would miss a day of my resolution and with my perfectionism would beat myself up because I had no discipline. Then I would say that I had messed up and just forget the whole thing. When I was studying why my resolutions had never stuck; I realized that I had been mean to myself and I had tried to do too much too fast. I piled on before I ever got started by making elaborate lists to follow. This time was going to be different; I had a simple plan and I am here to tell you it worked.

My plan was to be good to myself by not putting too much on me. Part of my discovery was that I didn't have any structure to my day. I needed a routine but routines are not automatically established. I had to go about building a routine, much like you learn a new aerobic dance step or a new song. Practice one part and then when you can do that, you add another part.

I decided to practice only one habit for a whole month. I know that psychologists say that it takes three weeks to learn a new habit. Well, for me I decided right off the bat that I would give myself an extra week by taking the whole month of January to practice just one habit; then if I missed a day I had a grace period built into my plan. Because of the grace period I didn't have to beat myself up either. My first baby step was cleaning my kitchen sink and keeping it shiny. The result of my plan was truly amazing.

The only thing I had to do was shine my sink every day. From that shining sink grew a positive attitude and a smile on my face. I was so surprised to get up in the morning and be greeted by that shining sink. I was not beating myself up and I think this is the key to taking baby steps.