New Month's Resolution: Write something

So how are those New Year's resolutions coming along? Still exercising regularly and sticking with that diet plan? If you're still on track with your resolutions, you're among a select few.

You may wonder why I'm writing about New Years resolutions in June! Well, this is my latest experiment - New Month's Resolutions, designed to avoid some of the pitfalls that plague the annual version.

What's wrong with New Year's Resolutions?

The problem is that far too often, by mid-January those good intentions have already fallen by the wayside. By the time June rolls around, it's hard to even remember what they were! Though I hesitate to cite myself as an expert, I do have years of experience with failed New Years resolutions!

Why is this so hard? Well, there are a bunch of factors, but here are few key reasons:

Too many.  Full of optimism and idealism at the start of a brand new year, we make a long list. "I will quit smoking, and read 100 books, and learn Spanish, and empty out the garage, and stick to a budget, and . . ."  That optimistic spirit feels great, and making a list like this feels fantastic!  Woo hoo, I can do anything!  Then real life hits, and pretty soon the first item bites the dust.  Then the second one falls off.   By then, it's time to forget about resolutions altogether.

Too much.  Learning from years of "too many", we decide to focus on just one to three resolutions, max.  Of course, if we're going to dedicate the year to achieving just a couple of things, they'd better be important, worthwhile, big-ticket items, right?  So this year, "I will get to size-0 and be financially free".   Of course, these are so daunting that we doom ourselves to resolution disappointment before we ever get very far.

Too vague.   So how about a simple resolution like "I will get in better shape"?  Sure, sure.   It's an admirable goal, really!  But it's way too vague on the subject of exactly what I'm going to do to get there, or even where "there" is.  Do I really need to go to the gym again, or how about if I just walk to the bank instead?  Or I could just eat a salad for lunch - surely that would count, right?

Too all-or-nothing.  This is the flip side of the vagueness problem.  Here we make a goal that's absolute.  "I will exercise every single morning before I do anything else."  This has some hallmarks of a good resolution.  It's definite, measurable, and achievable.   But it's also easy to fail.  One morning I'm sick, or groggy from a long plane trip.  The way this goal is written, I've already failed.  If that happens again, then I'm a double failure, and might as well give it up.

How's that list of resolutions going?

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An alternative:  New Month's Resolutions

Make a single New Month's Resolution at the start of each month, and make it something specific and definitely achievable within that month. If it's the kind of thing that requires a plan of action, then that has to happen in the first week of the month, leaving the other 23 or so days for implementation. If it's the type of thing that involves setting a new habit (or breaking an old one), then a month is a good amount of time. Some experts say that it takes 21 days for a new habit to really take hold, so a month should be enough to have it well-established.

If this works, then by making one simple resolution each month, it should be possible to get 12 of them done in a year. And what would the odds be on doing all 12 in a year if they were on one massive New Year's list? I don't know about you, but for me that would be somewhere near absolute zero.

The experiment

My body is telling me that it wants to get back to running, but unfortunately this time of year that requires either doing it on a treadmill (uninspiring) or getting up early in the morning (more inspiring, but trying to also turn into a morning person would make this a double-whammy resolution). I don't want to set this up for failure the first time out.

So instead, my resolution for June is to write and post 30 articles this month, either for this blog or for another site. I know I've let writing slide too long, so this goal does have value in getting me back in the habit.  I'm targeting one a day, but to avoid the all-or-nothing pitfall, I can miss a day and double up on another day, as long as I end up with 30 items by the end of the month.

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I'll keep you posted, and let you know how this turns out.  I barely got #1 in before midnight, but so far so good... one down, 29 to go!
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