Reframe "Resolutions"

My plan for a successful 2024 reset and restart

Isn’t it crazy that although we all know what date Christmas is, it still feels as though it sneaks up on us? Come October 1st, I typically have two simultaneous thoughts: on the one hand, I tell myself that I’ve essentially got three months to get our Christmas in order, and if I prepare well in October, I’ll be all set; on the other hand, I freely acknowledge (out loud) that once we hit October, it’s a slippery, speedy slide to New Year’s with the blur of Thanksgiving and Christmas as we shoot past them.

This year, once more, I found myself feeling woefully behind at the end of the second week in December, wondering how I let it happen again, and contemplating the beginning of 2024—how will I be better next year? New Year is baked into our cultural psyche as a reset, which is a great opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start fresh with new resolutions. But I believe the stale notion of “resolutions” is set up to fail and ultimately falls short. I’m going to do it differently.

I have the sense that I need to be more methodical in my approach to next year's reset. Still, with trying to get Christmas wrestled under control and end-of-year loose ends, I was already feeling rushed…how could I devote quality time to creating a 2024 plan that has merit and a high chance of succeeding? It occurred to me that this conundrum is the first stumbling block to success: we walk in lockstep with groupthink that on January 1 we must have a set of resolutions and we’re off to the races! I’ll go out on a limb and say many of these aspirations and intentions are probably neither well-considered nor well-planned, but rather an emotional response to feeling a need for change.

Break with the pack
First up, I’m going to reframe my thinking about time. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, and a year is no different. Fast is slow, slow is fast. My husband has participated in many ultramarathons and endurance treks, and afterward, he always has stories about the (mostly young) people who charge out ahead to be in front, whom he ends up passing somewhere in the middle or at the two-thirds point when they run out of steam.

Fast ends up being slow. So that I'm not sprinting out unprepared, I’ve decided to use part or all of January as my planning month. Who knows, maybe next year I’ll be so well-prepared for the holidays (maybe that will be a goal) that I can use December as my planning period, but it didn’t happen this year and planning is an important brick to lay. I’m not going to beat myself up over it. So the “start” is two weeks delayed. So what? C’est la vie.

Come January, I’m going to shift my mindset from the end-of-year wind down (although I’m already thinking), put my planning cap on, and give serious, methodical thought and structure to a reset.

Establish motivating goals
For me, setting goals is one of the foundational bricks of change, but it matters how motivating the goal is. When I dramatically changed my view and behavior about health nearly 30 years ago, my goal wasn’t simply to lose weight and get in shape, it was a much bigger life goal: I aspired to be an active “older” mom fully engaged in my child’s life. That fervent purpose activated my thinking and propelled me forward. 

My thought process will be to go upstream, identifying not just the change, but why I want to change. For instance, I didn’t achieve this year’s intention to declutter more, and frankly, it’s making me nuts. I’m going to set the worthy, higher goal of creating a calming home—a respite from the crazy world. Decluttering will be a part of it, but not the end. With this higher goal in mind, even my desire for a calmer Christmas becomes part of the plan, and thus I’ll create objectives so that next December, I’ll be able to fully relax and enjoy the last three weeks of the year.

Prepare and methodically plan
I believe many “resolutions” fail simply because we aren’t prepared to make them a success. Insufficient attention is paid to how to achieve the why. My design career has been project-based, so my methodology is based on what I know works to achieve successful ends. After the goals are set, we have to figure out how to bring those goals to fruition. Enter objectives, which will inform the approach.

For instance, with my overarching goal of creating a calm home, there are several objectives to achieving that goal: create an environment that is clutter-free, well-organized, clean, well-maintained, and harmoniously designed.

Drilling down, each objective has its own set of criteria. Let’s take a clutter-free environment as an example. First, I’ll need to de-clutter, which will involve a lot of tossing of paper materials and old items to be recycled. Next, I’ll devise a plan to keep it clear, such as immediately disposing of junk mail, unpacking within a day of returning home, picking up and putting items away once every couple of days, etc...

And that’s just one objective. You can see why I’ll need a month of planning…

Inspire and reinforce
I came across a post from Ariel Curry’s Substack, Notes From the Editor, entitled  “The Great Unsubscribe” which not only validated much of what I had been feeling about decluttering, but also—more importantly—was a reminder to surround myself with positive reinforcement. Friends and acquaintances, situations, blogs and books, podcasts…all of these create a life culture that supports the principles and practices that we deem to be most important.

When resolve starts to wane, inspiration is not only reinvigorating but necessary. I find having a wide variety of motivating material from multiple sources at my disposal is essential. Books, blogs, and podcasts are top of my list; thumbing through a book or listening to a podcast is often just the kind of inspiration and reinforcement I need, breathing new life into my goals.

To that end, plant your goals firmly in your mind: see them, say them—there is solid neuroscience behind this. I plan to type up my outline and print it out so I can glance at it every so often. I may even put it in a frame so it has prominence and significance.

Cultivate fortitude
The mindset of doing hard things resonates with me and is an essential link in the goal chain. I believe that emotional fortitude and resiliency are muscles that require exercise to remain nimble and strong. This becomes especially important when attempting change or improvement because, with anything new, we tend to sink before we swim.  If we aren’t prepared to fight through sinking…we won’t learn to swim and move forward.

I wrote on this notion of doing hard things in The Easiest Leads to Hardest Roads because I firmly believe that cultural norms have trained us to be weak. We are surrounded by messaging that encourages us to make things easier and more comfortable…and in reality, this doesn’t make life better. Instead, it creates a more fragile and precarious existence. For more on this, Michael Easter’s book, The Comfort Crisis, beautifully explains how embracing discomfort can help to make an authentically better life.

Think of all the myriad of things in our lives meant to make it easier…in this day and age, we don’t even have to vacuum: a Roomba can do the work. I don’t have a Roomba, and although part of me desires one, the other (more pragmatic) part knows I’m just fine without it…so most mornings I still do a quick pass with the dry mop to pick up the copious amounts of our Golden Retriever’s hairballs.

We can strengthen our resilience and fortitude muscles by simply eliminating many of the easy buttons in our lives; these are small, but powerful, shifts that train us to think differently and truly make a difference.

Commitment
Lastly, words have power. They can shift our minds and drive action. The definition of “resolutions” sounds good: a formal expression or intention…the quality of being determined. Sounds great, right? Wrong. For me, it lacks the all-important action. “Commitment” goes a step further—it’s an obligation. Personally, in my estimation, that’s the reframe necessary to achieve.

A process for success
Using a methodical process forces me to slow down, think through and prioritize, and ultimately decide what’s truly important. I find that cream eventually rises to the top, so if I take my time, the least suitable fall away and the most important and appropriate ideas remain. Those are the keepers.

It also allows me the opportunity to let my mind and body’s batteries go through the natural end-of-the-year cycle of running down so they can recharge and be ready for January. I’ve got my document started so I can add, subtract, and expand over the next couple of weeks. With time to plan and a clean slate, I’ll be ready to live well, age great.

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