Resolutions .. or set up for failure? Happy New Year!

I tend to view things in a way to logical way. I tend to try and be a perfectionist. I tend to believe that I should just know everything and how to do it. I tend not to like to ask for help. laughs .. and that leads me to the topic of this post. New Years resolutions, follow throughs and failures... and asking for help.

One of the biggest resolutions of the New Year for people is to diet/lose weight. It's also the number 1 failed resolution. We set ourselves up with this big hopes, dreams and goals. We give ourselves unrealistic final results, and we expect that we are just going to wake up January 1 and do it. Generally there is really no preparation, we "think" we know how and what to do. Days, weeks, months into it we are becoming aware that we either have not been keeping to it, or have started out strong but as always, life just gets in the way and the goal gets forgotten or 'set aside until tomorrow" and 365 tomorrows later here we are again.

When we reach that realization, when we become aware of the failure, we punish ourselves. Sometimes out loud, sometimes physically, but most of the time I think its a mental punishment. I constant berate myself for not doing this, not finishing that .. and then I berate myself for berating myself.

For me, one of my big "failure" resolutions is apartment cleaning. On one hand I am a germ freak - one the other, I just cant seem to put things away, and I always have clutter. Clothes, shoes, coats, paper, boxes, pillows, blankets, laundry(clean!) .. its never ending. It gets to a point I just cant stand it sometimes, yet it stays that way. To get past it, I started telling myself - It's my apartment and I can keep it as i wish. I would never however invite anyone in. Sometimes our goals are not physical like dieting or cleaning our houses, but personal, emotional goals. Those are a trap all by themselves that can lead to years of emotional failure stress.

My personal emotional "resolution" has been to be happy. smile and believe - everyday. While its a valiant goal I think we should all strive for, its one of those unrealistic goals. I believe we do have a choice every single day to be happy or let it control us, but its unrealistic to think we have the will power 100% of the time to do it.

So I decided that I was just not going to set myself up for that anymore. No more resolutions. No more "Im am going to do this or else". No more cursing myself for not having done it.

Certainly there are always things that need improvement, and I think that the New Year is a good time to reset my focus on those accomplishments. I believe though that instead of making resolutions to change, we need to move the focus on how to make the change. There are tools out there. We are all capable of making the choice to get them.

For many of the dieters and house cleaning slackers, there is a deeper issue as to why we are eating or living in our cluttery mess. And that of course holds no truer than to the emotional changes. We are not going to wake up and just be a better person. We are not going to wake up and just suddenly be responsible and pay all our bills on time and clean up our messes. We are not going to wake up 365 mornings and never eat another piece of chocolate. But we can wake up and start looking for the tools that will help us ultimately succeed in being the person we want to be, to help us accomplishing our goals and tasks more days than not.

Remember that we dont have to do it alone,there is a world of information out here. Some things are not going to happen in a day a week or even a month, maybe even the one year. Its not always going to be easy. And importantly too, remembering to take things 1 step or task at a time. Dont overwhelm and put too many things on the plate - alternate the things you are working on. On average it takes 90 days to change a habit/behavior and you never remove it, you replace it with a different one. Choose ahead of time the healthy one you want to replace it with.

Ook so thats my thoughts on today lol Many Magical wishes for success and happiness in 2010!!