New Year's Resolutions

I dislike New Year's resolutions. There. I said it. It's not because I think bettering oneself is bad, though; it's because I find them a little depressing. We tend to often make resolutions only to drop that new life-changing diet or extreme exercise program just weeks after embarking on an optimistic journey intended to positively impact our life in some way that we feel is lacking. The failure to uphold the resolution leaves us disappointed in ourselves, and sometimes we fall victim to allowing the bad habit or poor diet to become an exaggerated form of what it was before we made the choice to change it.

Personally, I feel this issue happens in my own life when I attempt too big of a change without allowing it to build over time. Instead, I generally try to make very small life and habit modifications when the thought occurs to me: Oh hey, you know how you leave your sweaty workout clothes draped over the side of the tub until all surface area is covered in a mound of filthy laundry? Yeah, get your act together and just throw them in the clothes bin as soon as they dry off. Ideally, I recognize that my adult self is telling my bratty teenage self that it's time to not leave my crap everywhere, and I make the choice then and there to change a bad habit.

Though I am often Type A enough to change a minor habit on a whim, there are two habits that I recognize as ongoing issues that require more attention than a simple casual decision to change.

First, I wholly admit that despite constant recognition of my bad habit, I still leave sweat-soaked clothes hanging all over the edge of the tub to dry for days on end. So gross and lazy, right? I'm a tidy person, so this behavior kind of boggles my mind.

And second, my therapist has told me on more than one occasion that I need to adopt a habit of daily meditation to help combat my anxiety disorder. I believe her because I've done it and it works really well, but for some reason I have difficulty getting myself to make it an ongoing habit.

So what am I going to do about this? Insert Operation Step Outside of My Comfort Zone. This year I decided to make not one but two freaking New Year's resolutions:

1. Daily meditation; and
2. Daily cleanup of sweaty clothes.

Truth be told, I actually cheated and started doing both of these things before the new year began. I'm hoping that because both are relatively simple-to-achieve resolutions that my inner teenager can get past her rolling eyes and keep the trend going, and I'm also hoping that I will be more conscious of making these two changes by making them official New Year's resolutions.

We'll see. I'll keep you updated. 

INKnBURN Butterfly girl says, "Ooooommmmmm...."