What are your new year’s resolutions?? I know, we’re all sick of hearing it. This is the time of year when everyone says they’re going to read 10 books a month, cycle for 2 hours a day and only have a takeaway once a month. The first week starts off great, then by week 2 I’m already falling behind, but idk about anyone else.
So, today I’m going to talk about how I kinda manage to stick to mine. This is in no way explaining how you might go about your new year’s resolutions, merely explaining what works for me.
Putting a new label on it
Everyone always calls them resolutions, but putting a new spin on the word helped me achieve a little more. Instead of calling them resolutions, I am calling them goals, or aspirations. By changing the wording I was using, it helped me to look at the new year in a better light.
No longer was I talking about something that I was stuck or nearly forced to do, but my goals were simply that. Little goals and aspirations. I find the word is a bit softer, and I don’t really know why, but this made me more enticed to do the little things.
Intentional goal setting
This is a tip I’ve been implementing all through my life, in various ways. In terms of new year goals, what this means is that I’m not aspiring to run 3 kilometres a day. I’m not even aspiring to run 1 kilometre. Because I know that’s not something I’m going to do. What I would do in place of that is say ‘I’ll go for a walk 3 mornings a week’ because that’s much more my vibe.
I found it no use to aspire to do a whole bunch of things I would never usually do, let alone in the new year. (I’ll talk about this again I’m sure, but other ways I’m being intentional are with my clothes, my spending and my time)
Having cheat days
So this tip kinda ties in with the one above. Basically, I find it really difficult to keep up with my goals if I try to complete them every day of the week. Some things are easy to do every day, like drinking more water, but other things might not be.
So I give myself cheat days, where I can justify ordering a takeaway, or treating myself to a coffee. Other ‘cheat’ days would be buying a little treat. (As long of course I can justify the item being in my life). I also might not want to go for a walk every day. That’s okay, doing a little often is better than doing a lot rarely, in my mind anyway.
Getting into a routine by doing these small things helps me start the year off right, and even though it might not look like I achieve much, I often find myself the better for these small acts of care.
This year, I don’t have a lot of goals. A few are based around what I mentioned: going for a walk/movement of some form a few times a week, being more intentional with yarn purchasing (its addictive) and reading 24 books this year (that’s 2 a month, and I include rereads in this)
These little tips and tricks allow me to move softly into the new year, while doing small acts of care along the way. These tips help me greatly, and now new year small talk isn’t so daunting or annoying anymore!