2016 New Year's Resolution Challenge: Set Small, Successful Goals By Making Weekly Changes

Sound familiar?

I realize that I set these really high goals for myself with unrealistic deadlines and expectations, so I have decided to look at my New Year's Resolutions in a new way. I'm not really good at starting on January 1st going full throttle into a new diet plan or giving up caffeine or sugar or something like that because New Year's Day feels too much like a holiday for me. My husband is always off work still from before Christmas and we're still in relax-mode.  We enjoy watching the Rose Parade on repeat all day long and staying in jammies, having a big breakfast, going for a walk or bike ride around the neighborhood or at our local park trail and playing with Christmas presents. Today was not much different.

However, I do want to make some changes to my life and I think I'll be more successful taking these new changes in weekly doses rather than feeling like I have to start all of these multiple things on day 1 and if I don't I have failed the whole year. GASP!

I can do anything for a week. Seven days is nothin'! I'm also not going to star each weekly goal on Monday mornings because Monday's are hard enough as it is without having to start a new weekly goal. I'm going to start on Saturdays. My goal is to get used to doing the new habit or seeing the benefits of the new habit so that I'll want to naturally roll it over to the next week rather seamlessly. A few days before the new week starts I'll pick a new goal from my list to start and I'll try my best to continue my goal from the previous week too. If I can't seem to accomplish the previous weeks goal I will at least focus on completing the goal I choose for that week, and will do my best to continue it all seven days. I plan to make a hard copy of my weekly goal sheet too with check off boxes so I can see what I'm supposed to be doing as well as see all of my progress.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION 2016
WEEKLY GOAL CHALLENGE

The first week is making my bed daily. I'm really bad at doing this. I have a hard time with mornings. I'm always very tired and my back is always very stiff. Especially when I'm breastfeeding a baby like I am now with my 12 month old. (Hard to believe he's already a year old!!!) But the position I'm in to nurse him all night long wreaks havoc on my back.  I've been in a lot of car accidents over the years and this has exacerbated my back pain.  So I wake up in pain pretty much every single morning. The last thing I want to do is bend over and try to pull heavy blankets up to make the bed, so it's become a habit not to make it. However, I like having a nice, neat bed to climb into at night and so does my husband. Plus, as my husband said today,  "it makes it easier to dump a load of clothes to fold when it's made too"  and I agree. We not only made the bed this morning, we also folded a bunch of clothes too and even put most of them away while the kids were busy playing Legos and the baby was happy in his jumper! Bonus! Not too shabby of a way to start the new year off! We even slept in!

So week 1 is making the bed daily and folding my PJ's and putting them away in the morning. Those kind of go hand in hand. I'm REALLY bad at taking clothes off and leaving them on the floor. So I'm trying to change this really bad habit. 

I have some other ideas of things I want to add to my weekly list of New Year's Resolutions and I'm determined to make them last past the second week of January. Isn't that usually the time when everyone stops doing their resolutions? 

I'm going to start making an ongoing list of things I want to accomplish in 2016 and I'm going to update each new post with my running list. I'm hoping to create some better habits this year.
Would you like to join me?  What would you put on your list?

In no particular order:

1. Make the bed every morning

2. Fold PJ's in the morning and put them away.

3. Fold/hang up clothes at night. 

4. Brush teeth before bed. (Doesn't always happen if I'm too tired, even though I make the kids do it.)

5. Wash face before bed. (Doesn't always happen if I'm too tired.)

6. Spend 5-10 minutes cleaning, organizing, straightening our room or bathroom each night. 

7. Spend 5-10 minutes cleaning, organizing, straightening our room or bathroom each morning. 

8. Meditating each morning or evening. 

9. Start the day off with yoga. 

10. Eliminate sugar. 

11. Eliminate wheat. 

12. Eliminate dairy. 

13. Daily gratitude (3 things).

14. Eliminate yelling. 

15. Get out in nature every day and take a daily nature picture. 

16. Clean out 1 box, 1 bag, 1 cupboard  or 1 drawer a day. 
17. Straighten up/clean up, organize bathrooms each day.
18. Juice Daily
19. Load and run the dishwasher each night.
20. Wash, dry, fold and put away ONE load of laundry a day.

to be continued...

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