Thursday Three: Ways To Keep Resolutions

Katie Katie Parsons is the creator of Mumbling Mommy and is a freelance writer, editor and communications specialist. She works from her home office on the east coast of Florida. Most often she writes about life in a combined family of five children and what it's like being a full time work-from-home parent. Feel free to pitch guest post ideas or just drop her a line at [email protected].

Today marks five days into the New Year. If you are not a parent, you may still be catching up on your sleep after the festivities of New Year’s Eve. If you are a parent, you are probably also trying to catch up on your sleep from, well, the glorious time known as the holiday season.

Parents and non-parents alike share a commonality this time of year: making resolutions. Studies show that nearly 95 percent of New Year’s resolutions are long forgotten by the end of the month of January. The other five percent have a pretty slim chance of sticking around in the months that follow. Resolutions are made with so much heart, so many good intentions. So why are they so tough to keep up?

Photo via amanzi-reflections.blogspot.com

Life gets in the way. Work schedule gets hectic. Kids get a vicious case of the stomach flu one week into your monster workout routine plan. You get the vicious virus the following week. Your husband is called away for work and you have no time to get outside and do your forty-five minute walks that you promised yourself on December 31 would happen every single day of 2012. A lot of legit things seem to get in our way on the road to resolution-keeping. The best that you can do is to try to pick up where you left off and move forward. Missing one day should not mean waiting until December 31 to make the resolution to try again.

Here are three easy ways to improve the chances that your resolutions will stick this year:

Tell someone your resolutions. By saying your goals out loud, you are now accountable to someone other than yourself. Insist that the listener keep you on task and do not ignore their texts asking how it is going so far.

Write your resolutions down. Write them, copy them and tape them up in visible spots around your home where you are sure to be reminded that they exist. You may even want to move them from time to time as a fresh reminder of what you want to accomplish this year.

Adjust your resolutions. If you end up going to the gym four days instead of five one week, do not scrap your entire plan. It is not ruined. You still went to the gym four times. Go you! If you accomplish a work goal, do not sit back and gloat. Set another goal! If something is simply too lofty to accomplish and you realize this early on, do not be discouraged. Adjust the goal to a more realistic level and be happy with the progress that you do make.

True stories from the front lines of parenting.

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