In 2022, I'm Giving Myself More of These Things

I love making New Year’s resolutions.

I am great at starting things, reinventing myself, going all-in on the new me. But middles? Not so much. By February 1, I’ve usually failed, been hard on myself and forgotten all about my resolution. The last few years, I haven’t even shared my goals because I didn’t want to admit to anyone but myself how little I did to try to achieve them.

After a few crazy years, some input from my kids, and a lot of self-reflection, I’m going to try again. However, this time, I have thought a lot about why I don’t finish what I start, and working on the pieces of myself that get stuck is my resolution. So here’s my recipe book for a fresh new year:

See Change as an Opportunity

Change is a scary thing. However, ruts are miserable places to be in. The deeper those ruts, the harder it is to see the opportunities right next to you. It’s important to look around once in awhile to see if there’s a different way to do something- can you work smarter instead of harder? Can you end up with the same income and more time with your family? Can you choose a path that provides better future opportunities? The answer won’t always be yes, but it’s important to look on a regular basis. Best of all, if it turns out that you’re in the best possible place for now, it’s an opportunity for gratitude and celebration, which is always motivating.

In our family, my husband has long hated his safe, secure job. We are looking now for something else for him, even if it pays less. We have realized that the hours gone, the stress in his life and the cost of commuting (which is very expensive in our case) makes it not worth it. However, if he can find a job that is truly remote-only, it will free up funds from both commuting and childcare. And perhaps he can keep it when we head out on our next adventure sailing around the world for a few years. This wouldn’t have been an option with his old job, but this provides a chance to start our next dream even sooner if we find the right fit.

Find the Balance Between Daring and Forgiving

In order to make any real change in your life, you need to be brave. You need to put yourself out there and do something that you can possibly fail at. But if you can forgive yourself for this, you can fail up. Failure is an excellent stepping stone. If a goal is important to you, give yourself a chance to fail at it. Better yet, forgive yourself for failing more than once- a thousand times if you need it. Each time, take stock of whether there’s something you can improve on before you try again.

I have always wanted to be a writer, but I am shy and I don’t like to promote myself. It is my hope that at some point, my words can speak for themselves, and the people that they mean something to can provide the word-of-mouth needed to allow me to write professionally full-time. To write something that feels important is scary. To have nobody read it is disappointing. This year I will continue to try, to put myself out there, to fail when I need to, and to pick up my ego, dust it off and try again.

Take Stock of What You Value and Prioritize It

We have a closet full of board games in our family. However, my husband and I both end up taking our work home and our kids end up playing Minecraft or LEGO alone instead of enjoying time with us. This happens more days than I’d like to admit. Yet, they are my first priority, my whole world. They are at the top of my list when I consider what is important in my life. I just don’t reflect this very well when I consider how I spend my time. I need to set better boundaries between my work and my family life. I need to create some firm walls when it comes to spending time with the people who are my entire world and trying to inch ahead to meet some goals that may not be completed until my boys are much too old to want to spend time with me.

For me, this means designated outings, playtime and family dinners that don’t get bumped when someone else asks for time. It means being fully present with my family without distractions like phones or tablets anywhere nearby. It means choosing to do after-hours work after bedtime instead of sending my kids to eat dinner in front of the TV. It means honoring the priorities of others when they do the same.

Give Yourself Every Opportunity to Succeed

I think the hardest part of meeting resolution goals each year is that I have high expectations and I don’t know what to do when things don’t quite work out how I want them to. I am often trying to meet goals that require changing my life in complicated ways during stressful times in my life. So here are my guidelines to make it different this time:

1. Prioritize Rest and Relaxation: I can’t do much if I’m not well-rested. Since my job requires a lot of deep, critical thought and attention to detail, I really can’t perform well unless I have a full night of sleep every night. As I get older, I have to be careful about what I eat and be sure I get exercise every day if I want to sleep to the fullest. I also wind down my evening with a good book to give myself something to aspire to in my dreams.

2. Start Slow and Build Up: Habits are easy for me, once they’re formed. Complicated goals are something that really need, for me, to be a process of establishing one good habit at a time. Then, when life is stressful, they’re already on autopilot and I don’t have to think too hard or rearrange my routine.

3. Create a Template for Addressing Failure: Ask yourself the same questions each time something doesn’t work out. For me, the questions include how long the new goal worked before it failed, what the hardest part of it was, what parts of it I enjoyed most, the progress I made, and how I can make it better when I try again. Then I write down my steps before I try again. If I need to, I take a small break before starting again, but I give myself a definite start date when I do or I’ll never return to it.

Keep it Short and Build From There

I like long, complicated things in theory- they’re amazing in my head! In practice, I am terrible at them. I’m definitely the planner, not the executor. This means that it’s in my nature to make long, complicated goals. Lots of times I am so busy daydreaming about all the things I am going to do when I succeed that I forget to put in the work. This year, I am only going to set my sights smaller and wait until I meet one goal to consider the next. This also leads to more flexibility- if an opportunity crops up on my way that I didn’t consider in my plan, I will be more likely to take it seriously because I don’t have tunnel vision.

Don’t Compare Yourself to Anyone

There are some things I’m really good at. There are also a lot of things that I’m much worse at than most of the people I know- I have a terrible sense of direction without a GPS. I forget anything that’s not on my calendar. I have no patience or ability to concentrate in the morning before my first cup of coffee. If I’m stressed, I retreat into my head and I can’t see a messy home until I start tripping over things.

The point is, I’m uniquely talented and uniquely challenged. Because of this, what’s easy for the DIY blogger who wrote about their own journey to change is more often discouraging than helpful for me. Even the ones who are more self-deprecating often find a different part of the task to be challenging than I would. It’s not a race. It’s a process. If comparing yourself to others makes you look down on yourself, stop.

Don’t Forget to Celebrate Milestones

I could have put this first, because in a lot of ways it’s the most important thing. However, I wanted to leave it at the bottom as the final thought. No matter how far you get, celebrate your journey. Honor how far you have come. Even if your first goal is only 10% completed, getting 25% of the way there next time is an improvement worth noting.

For myself, I already know I won’t end 2022 as a fully formed specimen of perfection. But I plan to be proud of the strides I made and to try and use them as a starting point for an even better 2023.