Here is an interesting approach to new year's resolutions. Mary Yost, in her blog, suggests that we have the whole thing backwards. She writes,
By making resolutions at the beginning of the year, it's like we slap our worst flaws on a neon sign and then announce to the world what we are likely to fail at in the coming year.
If you are really committed to doing whatever it is that you "resolve" to do in the new year, wouldn't you have done it already? And if something really is a resolution, doesn't that word mean a problem has already been fixed?
Instead, as one year winds down and we plow toward the next, we continue the bad behaviors and problem habits that we swear we're going to address as we flip the calendar over.
My New Year's Day thoughts played with this notion yesterday. What if we instead celebrate the fresh new calendar by acknowledging our successes of the previous year? Wouldn't that give us extra momentum to deal with our shortcomings throughout the year so that we really will have new victories to hail with the new year?
By making resolutions at the beginning of the year, it's like we slap our worst flaws on a neon sign and then announce to the world what we are likely to fail at in the coming year.
If you are really committed to doing whatever it is that you "resolve" to do in the new year, wouldn't you have done it already? And if something really is a resolution, doesn't that word mean a problem has already been fixed?
Instead, as one year winds down and we plow toward the next, we continue the bad behaviors and problem habits that we swear we're going to address as we flip the calendar over.
My New Year's Day thoughts played with this notion yesterday. What if we instead celebrate the fresh new calendar by acknowledging our successes of the previous year? Wouldn't that give us extra momentum to deal with our shortcomings throughout the year so that we really will have new victories to hail with the new year?
I love this idea! What successes are you celebrating that you can build on? What do you see at St. John's that can give us extra momentum as we move forward in 2010? What other strategies help you stay focused on what is most important?
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