Our New Year's goals? That's easy—get more treats.
Did you make any New Year's Resolutions for 2012? I didn't actually write any down (mistake number one), but I did create the usual sprawling mental list: spend more time on my kitchen garden blog, post all those backlogged recipes on Farmgirl Fare, expand the raised bed garden by about 300%, plant a bunch of raspberry canes and fruit trees, declutter my entire life, organize my entire life, get back in better shape, and lose 15 pounds (okay, 20). Oh yeah, and work on that book proposal my very patient agent has been wondering about.
Overwhelmed? Me too.
Then the other day my publishing network, BlogHer, emailed to let me know that, as one of their Life Well Lived panel members, they wanted me to write a blog post featuring this Getting Organized question:
How do you keep/maintain your New Year's Resolutions?
My mind went totally blank.
Fortunately over at Life Well Lived, Alicia has come up with 5 Easy Ways To Keep Your New Year's Resolutions. My favorite? Limit the number of resolutions you make to no more than three.
More below. . .
Be sure to check out the comments section of Alicia's post for lots more helpful and inspiring hints on keeping resolutions from other BlogHer bloggers. And don't forget to share your ideas too.
BlogHer's year-long Life Well Lived program includes several sweepstakes giveaways, and right now you can enter to win a Kindle Fire and a $50 Amazon.com gift card!
Meanwhile, here's a technique I started using years ago that's been helping me peck away at my (now much shorter) list of 2012 goals: micro actions.
I'm really good at putting off things that I don't really feel like doing, or that I know will take a long time to complete, so I use micro actions to get me started.
How do they work? You simply tell yourself that you only have to take one tiny step toward whatever you need to do—whether it's sorting through 3,000 photos, trimming 168 sheep hooves, or weeding the entire garden—rather than tackling the entire project at once.
How do they work? You simply tell yourself that you only have to take one tiny step toward whatever you need to do—whether it's sorting through 3,000 photos, trimming 168 sheep hooves, or weeding the entire garden—rather than tackling the entire project at once.
Once I've finally convinced myself to actually start something, more often than not I'll keep working way beyond my initial micro action, usually because I know I don't have to. Is it all just a mind trick? Yep, but for me it really works.
And now I need to go tend to the donkeys and sheep because I've spent an hour longer on this post than the 15 minutes I gave myself to start it. Yes!
© FarmgirlFare.com, getting better (and cuter) every year—but still not very organized.
I rarely make resolutions but this year, I did make one. It was to refrain from being judgmentally sarcastic about people. It has been hard to keep. But it isn't an all-or-nothing situation. So I catch myself in the middle of making sarcastic remarks when people drive through the red light at the pedestrian crosswalk, which happens every day, twice a day, when I cross there. And I remind myself of my resolution and take a deep breath. I tell myself that my getting sarcastic about their lack of care for running the red light will not change them one iota. That's when I find myself wishing I had a paintball gun to shoot at their disappearing car. I plan to ask the city to put up a red light camera that will pay for itself in a week, I bet. But yes, it's a lot of work.
ReplyDeleteI have actually started using the micro action approach to my house cleaning. Instead of trying to do it all in one day, I do one chore each day and it isn't so overwhelming and I actually get things done! LOL!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for visting my blog the other day to see my new mini donkeys! We are just loving having them around! :)
I don't make any cause I know I won't keep them....
ReplyDeleteI love resolutions but I usually only do one or two, and I never make them about stopping something or anything negative (like losing weight). Yeah, I do need to, but I prefer to make resoluations that are what I think of as "value-added," in other words, doing something I've been wanting to do that will add fun, richness, or some other positive benefit to my life.
ReplyDeleteThis year, I'm taking ice skating lessons! (& hey, if it inadvertently helps me lose that weight, all to the good.)
Absolutely in LOVE with the donkeys...indeed, all the animals and your whole site! Hope it's raining there by now, Susan!
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