New year resolutions the right way

tl;dr: Imagine your resolution for the next year, make little steps and start them whenever you feel ready.

At the beginning of last year, I made a few resolutions with a goal: to start becoming a better myself. It’s something I have never achieved to keep during a whole year, not even a single little one of them.

This year I was able to complete some of them -not all of them still because of unfortunate events- and it feels great.

How did I achieve this? It was actually pretty simple. Just do not imagine and start them on January 1st

Is that all? Actually no. Also remember the tortoise and the hare.

So what were the resolutions?

Healthier life

In November 2018, I had -minor- health issues. It took me until the end of the year to picture what I can do to fix some of my lifestyle issues. By January 1st, I had two ideas :

• I can replace coffee with tea, but I need to do it right: learn what is a good tea quantity, make it at the right temperature and infuse it for the right time.
• I used to drink alcohol -few but still- everyday, and had habit to drink alone at home. So I can restrict myself to only one drink day by week, without caring about the quantity.

It was definitely not so much, but a little step forward sounds easier than a sprint. Moreover, there is no obligation to just stick to those two, so I started to run on November.

Spoiler alert: it worked and it feels great. No more stomach aches thanks to the tea, no more unpleasant alcohol caused state everyday, and running gave me a better breathing.

Writing

Another resolution was to start writing blog posts. If you are reading this, you probably guess that it is a success. But it was not that easy to start: I wasn’t ready at all and had no idea.

It took me time, writing down any subject that sounds interesting, remembering myself that every topic might be interesting exactly like my speaker experience told me : we all have something to learn.

In August, I wrote and publish my first post and the feedback was amazing. I was so happy that, even if my subject was very basic, a lot of people were actually interested and learn stuff… so I wrote 4 more that had an even better feedback.

My two cents

For many years, I made pointless resolutions that I didn’t achieve because they were too hard or things I didn’t believe in.

Today, I’m writing down my experience hoping that some of you, readers, get inspired by my method and get resolutions done.

So I’m writing down everything I’d like to accomplish during a whole year, and I choose only resolutions that I still believe in on January 1st.

I also stay pretty vague in what I should do: if I want to be more ecological, I can simply make my own compost and it will be a first step forward.

Finally, even if I look at my resolution list every day of my life, I only start them when I’m ready, like in August and November for some of them in 2019.

Remember, little steps, stay vague and wait to be ready.