Comments on: Why I’m done with New Year’s resolutions

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 12:07:43 +0000

Maybe it’s the huge list you’re beating yourself up with? Many people fall victim to the same thing. They’re going to eat better, do more exercise, get more organised, give up smoking, start saving, visit their folks more etc. etc. It’s all too much!
Why not try just one resolution and go from there?

By: Miiockm

Miiockm — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 04:40:26 +0000

I decided the same thing as you for this year. Instead of making grand resolutions I would just try to work on little things and eventually they’d add up by themselves.

By: Caitlin

Caitlin — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 21:20:31 +0000

I have basically given up on resolutions as well. There are a couple of things I’ve picked up, though–one is to pick a word or theme to focus on for the year (read more in this post from Rowdy Kittens: http://rowdykittens.com/2012/11/2012/). My word/theme for 2013 is love. I want to respond to others from a place of love (instead of negativity, where I usually jump), and I want to appreciate the people I love and do the things I love to do. I want to get in better shape and eat healthier but this year that is going to come from loving my body and wanting to take care of it, not from wanting to change the way I look because it’s not good enough.

The other part is to just focus on one change at a time (this is from Leo Babauta’s book The Power of Less–his blog Zen Habits is also great). New Year’s seems like a time to pile things on, when really it’s much easier to change something if we focus on one change at a time. So right now I am making the effort to work out for a few minutes every day to build a fitness habit, and that is the only change I am working on. I still try to make good choices as far as food but I’m not focusing on it. In general focusing on one thing has made such a big difference in my life–I’m not always accomplishing more but I feel much calmer about everything.

By: Kacie

Kacie — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:08:42 +0000

I kind of felt bad when I looked over some ideas I had at the beginning of 2012 (they were not SMART goals, and I think if they were, it would have helped). I was like…wow. I fell so short.

So rather than focusing on personal improvement in January, I just like to think ahead for the year in terms of finances. It’s something tangible and something more measurable than “spend less time on the computer” like i had tried, vaguely and failed.