Who says it has to be January 1st to hit the reset button?
Reporting to you live from 2019, it's your girl from WJJ. Congratulations everyone, we made it! 2018 is officially in the books and we're just a few days into a shiny new year. This means, among other things, that you get some additional seasonal conversation topics in your back pocket - namely, how were your holidays? And did you make any New Year's resolutions?
My answer to the latter question is usually along the lines of "drink more water" or "be a more active citizen" or "call my mom more." All of which are fine and good resolutions, made with the best of intentions. I'm willing to bet that you make similar ones. Work out three times a week. Try to cook more and spend less money eating out. Finally run that half marathon.
But New Year's resolutions are hard to keep to. For my part, I'll often forget them a month or two in the new year - either because I didn't have some tangible way of tracking them, or because the resolutions were too ambiguous to work towards in a meaningful way. They remind me of procrastinating in high school or college. I'd take a break from the books, vowing to just shut my eyes or scroll on Instagram for a few minutes - "I'll start being productive at 3pm." Inevitably I snap out of my reverie at 3:02pm, and the vicious cycle starts answer. "I'll start being productive at... 3:30pm." New year’s resolutions tend to be big, lofty, and vague aspirations. You've got to have some, no doubt - but I'll raise a challenge to you now to consider a different kind of resolution.
We can try it out together - weekly resolutions! Instead of resetting every calendar year, what if we reset every Sunday or Monday? Weekly resolutions lend themselves to being (don't hate me for this consulting-ese) much more actionable, more bite-sized. Here are some of my weekly resolutions:
- Do Meatless Mondays
- Travel with my reusable utensil kit
- Read for 15 minutes each day
- Brush my teeth at 9 PM
I've tried to make these as easy and intuitive as possible, and have entered weekly or daily reminders in my phone so that I'm given a little nudge (I had to abbreviate brush your teeth to 'BYT' so I don't have people glance at my phone at 9 PM and asks me why I need a daily reminder to brush my teeth, ha! You dirty.).
The hope is that by the time 2020 rolls around, I'll be sure that I was more conscious about my environmental footprint, spent more time reading in my day-to-day life, and tried to limit my late night snacking. Then maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to be meatless on Thursdays, too, or read for 30 minutes every day. A girl can dream.
What are some of your weekly resolutions?
Clean up your room before the week starts? Meal prep for Monday through Thursday? Floss? Be more forgiving or kind to yourself? Schedule more time to breathe during the day by setting a 5 minute coffee break reminder on your phone every few hours?