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New-Month's Resolutions Doesn't Have the Same Ring To It, But...
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 1:59PM I know people usually make these resolutions closer to the beginning of the year, but statistically speaking, I’m still in the ballpark of the New Year, right?
We need temporal demarcations like the New Year because they offer us a bright spot in our memories with which to compare one year to another. The year is a good unit of measure for our larger goals and progress through life. We need to pause for self-reflection sometimes, and what better time than when we switch out our calendars for fresh pages and sweep out the detritus of the darkest days of winter and the long holiday season? What better time to resolve to make some changes in our lives than this New Year Marker, so that we can measure it against the years before and after?
A year is such a relative thing though. The year is not so BIG when taken as a slice of the typical life. But in the day-to-day living of that life, the relative BIGness of the year is precisely why most New-Year’s Resolutions fail.
Resolutions come in a lot of flavors. They might mean accomplishing something good, quitting something bad, changing an attitude or emotion. They might be about health, wellness, sanity, safety, creativity, bravery, idealism. They might be personal or communal, public or private, weird or noble. They might be HUGE (like quitting something massive) or small (like flossing every day).
You may have heard some people say that in order for a change or goal (especially the big ones) to succeed, they must be plausible, well-defined, and measurable. You might have heard that gradual changes or baby steps are better for permanent change. You might have heard that for a change to stick you have to repeat it every day for twenty-eight days (or weeks or months). For a resolution to succeed (especially a big one), we have to reign it in from its lofty disconnection from our everyday reality and pin that sucker down. That resolution might feel like a whale, and pinning it down might mean cutting it up into more manageable bites.
A year is BIG, relative to a day. A month is less BIG, relative to a day. A month fits a bit more precisely into the pocket of our memory, doesn’t seem quite so GIGANTIC and permanent. A month offers a demarcation with which we can compare one fourish-week period to another, likes beads on the Year-String.
So, what if you could take that resolution, that thing however small or HUGE that you’d like to change about your life, and divided it into twelve pieces? Twelve steps along the way. Twelve wayside inns that are specific and measurable and smaller than the lofty resolution floating out there in the clouds. What if you drew a pretty frame around the first of each month on the wall calendar and a note about the Resolution’s benchmarks, or a reminder in your electronic organizer of choice that pings at you on the first day of each month? These smaller bits might be easier to chew through. You can compare how well you’ve done this month to last month. You can reflect on whether you are moving closer to that BIGger thing that you’d like to change. And if in one month you fall short? You recommit the first day of the next month. It’s not so far away. You have a chance to recommit twelve times this year alone.
If the month bite is still too big? Well, you know what to do. Weeks and days sit out there, waiting for you to lay out your hopes to CHANGE and DO and BE whatever it is you want to be.
So what is your whale? And how are you going to carve it up?
Reader Comments (2)
I'm doing a 90-day goal right now... it's easier to think in terms of March, which is just a couple months away, than next January, which is so far away my life will be completely different by then (I mean, hovercars will DEFINITELY be invented by then, right? Right?!?).
That 90-day goal? SIX-PACK!
Hovercars will be here next weekend. I heard. From a friend's cousin's girlfriend's mom. And I like that you're setting a manageable goal. I could totally drink a six-pack in ninety days!