First of all, happy new year. Thanks for reading my blog, whether you're reading it on the first of January 2020 or the thirty-first of December 2050. Either way, cool beans. I'm super grateful for another year of life, health, a loving family, my job, and my writing. I didn't realize until I went to post this entry that I've been writing once a week for a full year. More on this later.
Second, I should probably say that the photo above has nothing at all to do with my post. I took the photo on the morning I wrote this entry and thought it was so beautiful that it should be seen by as many people as possible. This is my best shot at that, even if that still gets the view count only up to five or six people. It's a photo of Lake Wononscopomuc, also called Lakeville Lake. I didn't put it through any filters.
Okay, now onto the topic of my post. I know that most people don't stick to New Year's resolutions, but I think that's because they make big resolutions when they should make small ones. Let me give some examples of big resolutions:
- lose 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 pounds
- exercise more or daily or forever
- write a book
- eat better
- be nicer
I'm not against any of these ideas, but achieving any of them isn't a one-off. A person can't achieve these goals without making thousands of decisions over months or years.
Instead, I'm a fan of the kinds of resolutions that I can check off the list each day or week. I don't mean that I think in every case, it's better to set the bar low, but I'm more likely to do things that I can do now.
Let's look at one of the goals on the list above, one that's very real for me: Write a book. That's way too daunting. This year, my plan is to write 250 words every day. I'm going to set an alarm on my phone to remind me to write the words if I haven't already gotten them out by a certain time each evening. A mere 250 words seems manageable to me, whereas a whole book sounds daunting.
When I put the number on the title of this post, I realized that I have been writing these posts for a full year. When I started, I decided that once/week was the right amount -- enough to keep the blog alive but not so much that I want to curl into fetal position and swat off all attempts at human contact.
This year's number makes a particularly easy goal-setting opportunity: What can you commit to doing for 20 minutes per day?
So, instead of asking your what are your goals for 2020, I ask you what are your goals for the first few days of the new year? How will you make yourself stick to those goals for three days? Then, how will you tweak the goals or push through to the next few days? Happy to read any good advice in the comments.
Oh, and also, I wish you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
20 minutes a day – a great idea. Whatever one chooses for that day.
So far, I’ve managed to complete my 20 minutes of writing both days of 2020. Honestly, it’s harder than I thought to squeeze in the time, but I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to do it on days when I haven’t already completed the work by 8:00pm. I’m hoping that I’ll find a regular time to write once school starts. We’ll see. Will you come up with a 20 in 2020 plan?
All good things, Carita