New Year's Resolutions - Break and Build Habits

This topic had to be the first because you will need the tips here to accomplish most, if not all, resolutions you may make.  Whether you're trying to break a bad habit or acquire a new one, the rules are basically the same.  Effort, especially while you are making a lasting change, is the primary requirement, as well as a commitment to building or breaking a habit.

Use these tips to self improvement through making and breaking habits:

1.  If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  That might sound a little negative coming as the first suggestion, but you won't be perfect all the time and you need to be ready for that.  Write down your goal - be specific about the habit you are trying to make or break.  When the goal is not specific, there is a tendency to water it down, or add more to the original goal.  You can't win a game if you change the rules in the middle. Finally, have a plan for what happens during a setback. 

2.  Focus on one habit at a time.  Don't try to diet and quit smoking at the same time.  There is actually scientific evidence to show that the human brain only has enough will power to attack one habit at a time. 

3.  Give yourself at least 30 days.  Set a firm date to begin and commit to the entire 30 days.  Set that 30th day as a milestone and not just a vague aspiration.  It takes about 3 weeks for most people to adopt or break a habit.  If you have other behaviors, people or situations that are associated with your bad habit or stand in the way of your new habit, make an effort to avoid them during the time you are trying to make or break a habit.  It might not be realistic to change your commute route permanently, but if it helps break the Starbucks or McDonalds habit, do it for 30 days and give yourself a chance.

4.  Be accountable.  If you keep a record of your progress, it can keep you focused.  Better yet, find an accountability partner who will keep you honest on your progress.  That person will encourage you whether you are progressing or not.  It also makes you more likely to persevere through the 30 days.

5.  Reward yourself.  Sometimes the new habit is a reward in itself, but when your efforts pay off, give yourself something special that you would not otherwise have.  It's a great motivation to start/break another habit!

Regardless of the resolution you make, if it includes a new practice or activity you don't already do, plan on following these steps to a positive change.  Good luck!

cindy

My New Year's Resolution

I said earlier this week that I wasn't revealing my resolution until a little later.  I've been procrastinating a couple of days now, probably because if I post it, it means I will have to do it.  My resolution is not original, but I don't think I've ever made this one.

I want to de-clutter my house.

I think getting rid of so much stuff will help me start to see my home in a new light.  We've been in this house for 10 years and I still like it very much, but after a while it's hard to see through all the stuff and get back to the features I liked when we bought it.  That may sound strange, but I think it's that inability to see past things that have been sitting in the same place for years that keeps me from working on decorating changes.  After 10 years, it might be time to plan for a few changes.

There are so many resources out there, so if you are one of those people who can't imagine where to start, I'll be happy to share some of those resources now and through this year as I find them (I'm always happy to hear about others too).  Here's a few I've found.

Flylady

Marla Cilley (a.k.a. Flylady) is da bomb of de-cluttering, cleaning and organizing your home.  I first found Flylady over ten years ago when my kids were babies, and I became a "Flybaby" follower of Marla.  The best part of +Flylady is that you can take as much as you want.  She has a fun little program to de-clutter your house over time, one room at a time.  If you want more, you can go much much much deeper into cleaning (I mean cleaning), organizing and menu planning.  If you master the Flylady system, you can pretty much do anything!

If you have a profile on Google+ you can check out the new community +Keep It Clean.  It also covers everything from de-cluttering to cleaning to money management, time management and even weight loss.  I'm just there for the de-cluttering part (I can't even wrap my head around doing another one of those worthy goals), but so far there is a nice community going there.

I'm fascinated by how people have come up with so many methods to de-clutter!  They make it downright fun to say goodbye to those things that are taking up your space!  

Joshua Becker and Becoming Minimalist has some great tips and links in 10 Creative Ways to Declutter Your Home.  He also has a great little digital book called "Simplify" that you can find at Amazon for your Kindle.

If decluttering is your 2013 dream, now's the best time of the year to get started.  There are so many links and Facebook groups and articles about this topic.  This is one of the "hottest" resolutions every year, so early January again brings lots of advice.  I'll keep you up to date on how I'm doing.  It won't be fast, but hopefully it will be steady.

cindy

Blog Resolution

Yesterday I talked about how most New Year's resolutions die very quickly and I offered a SMART method for setting goals and sticking to them.  Now it's time to apply it to myself.  I have some blog resolutions.

Obviously, I have the same resolution of most bloggers - to get more traffic, write more interesting content, develop a following and maybe monetize.  Great resolutions, but are they SMART?  More traffic - is that attainable?  How do you gauge that and more importantly, how do you control it?  That's just an example of why these broad open ended resolutions won't work.

OK, let's turn to my resolutions.  Well, they are exactly SMART just yet.  In fact, I haven't passed the S yet.  So here are my non-specific blog resolutions:

1.  Get myself on a regular blogging schedule and plan ahead.
2.  Increase my traffic by 25% over the year.
3.  Get involved in a community - see this great article about that from the SITS Girls
4.  Improve my social media skills generally.

I will readily admit these are not yet SMART goals.  However, here's what I will do.  I will spend the month of January researching each of these general resolutions and come up with a SMART goal with a plan.  Hopefully, I can transform each of these into a SMART goal and blog about it once every week beginning next week.

Yikes - this is scary stuff.  Now that I've put it out there, I have to at least carry through to February - or maybe through next Tuesday.  Baby steps . . .

cindy

2013 - It's Here, Are You Resolved?

Congratulations - we made it another year.  2012 was good, but 2013 will be better, right?  January 1 - the day of resolutions and reality.  We're thinking of diets while indulging in junk, and making fitness goals while watching football.  I've been dreaming of self-improvement during my daytime nap.

Yeah, I have a resolution, and a magic word for the year, but I'm not telling until later this week.  It might just jinx me.  Instead, let's examine resolutions generally.

The top 3 resolutions for 2012:
1.  Lose weight
2.  Getting organized
3.  Spend less, save more (hey, that was MY resolution last year)

Sound familiar?  You probably also know that less than 8% of people keep their resolutions.  Here's a great blog post from Forbes with a break down of how that happens.  While the post was a little discouraging with the statistics, I really loved this illustration from a 1915 prayer card:

Want to be successful in keeping your resolutions?  Good news - it can be done!  First, stop telling yourself it's a resolution, especially a New Year's Resolution.  Calling it that is just an excuse for blowing it within the first month.  Instead, look at it like any other goal, and be SMART!

S      Specific (or significant)

M     Measurable

A     Attainable (or Action-Based)

R     Realistic (Relevant)

T     Trackable

If you want to "be a healthier person" this year, what does that mean?  How will you determine what "healthier" is?  While making your whole family lose weight is a great resolution, is it something YOU can do?  If you just had knee surgery and want to run a marathon, is that really something you can accomplish in a year?  How will you track improvements of your "fitness" during the year?  Use the SMART metric to see if your goal (resolution) is a good one.

While your goal is a yearlong effort, you need to have smaller bites to get that done.  Set milestones - maybe every two weeks, maybe every month.  Keep your goal in mind - write it on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror.  Better yet, put it on your Facebook page and update your progress regularly.  (Using a blog might not be as effective - it didn't really help me last year.)  

Finally, if the whole idea of a New Year's Resolution is just too daunting, just don't do it!  While people who make resolutions are 10 times more likely to make a change, that's only because they set a goal, not because they set the goal on January 1.  Wait a week or a month and then set a GOAL.

OK, maybe I inspired you a little (or myself a lot).  I'll reveal my goal (resolution) later this week, and maybe I'll be SMART about it.

Happy New Year!

cindy

October Project List

As promised in my last post, I'm picking some projects for October.  As usual, I'm being ambitious with 5 projects, plus I would like to finish the projects I've been working on.  Well, at least I can try.  I've picked some I've been meaning to do for a while, but I also found a few new ones that look intriguing.  All are on Pinterest, so if anyone cares to join me, feel free (but let me see yours too!).  So without further ado, here are my five projects for October:

1.  Tutu - Oh man, I have to do this because Mackenzie has been begging for a while and I bought the tulle over a month ago.  There's no way I would hear the end of it if I decided to do a bunch of other projects first.  Like so many of these projects, this one is from Make-It-Love-It.

2.  Redo Sneakers  - This is one I just found, and it's actually two separate DIYs.  The first one is a fabric recover on some Toms (although I'm using my Target knock-offs) and the second is a recover of the soles.  These look fun because it's not anything I need, but if it works, I could use it.  This first one is from Elemental Carbon.  The re-sole is from Dream a Little Bigger

3.  Easy Elastic Band Skirt - This is another thing I've been wanting to do for a long time and I've had the elastic forever.  If this thing is as easy as it says (and they never are), I should be able to knock this out in an afternoon.  Yeah, right.  Again, this one is from Make-It-Love-It

4.  Fleece Hat and Scarf - I've got some fleece I need to use and this looks pretty easy.  I'm not completely sure what I will do with them because I'm in Arizona, but I can always throw them in my Etsy store.  The picture from the DIY is very bizarre because the lady who made these (Nebraska Views) doesn't show her grandchildren's faces.  So, here are some fleece scarves and hats on some smiley faces.

5.  Braided headbands - This is also a new thing I found that also looks so easy.  It should be a quick craft, but that's just not my way.  If these work, I'll also put some in the Etsy store, but I would definitely keep some for myself.  These beautiful items are from Alisa Burke, Redefining Creativity.

So there it is.  Five "simple" projects plus a couple quilts and afghans in progress (and a special project for a friend).  I'm getting a little excited.  Maybe this is a way to get me out of my crafter's block.  Cross your fingers.

cindy

Fit Friday - You Gotta Have A Plan!

I'm learning that it's not enough to say "I'll lose weight" or "I'll exercise more."  Those are great resolutions, but with no execution of the resolution you've got no solution.  Enter - a plan!

More than half Most Almost all of what I write here is encouragement for me.  I'm certainly not in a position to be speaking from a place of knowledge.  Having said that, a plan is in order - for me or whoever wants to be successful in getting healthier.

It takes 3 weeks or more to develop a habit.  Until then, you probably need a strong routine.  For exercising, it means scheduling a specific time each day during the upcoming week when you will exercise.  In fact, you should also plan exactly what exercise you will do.  Hopefully, after the 3 weeks of the routine, you will be in a place where you will know when and how to exercise regularly.  I'm still waiting for that to happen.

With weight loss for me, it's all about accountability.  I need to weigh myself every day at the same time.  I know many people strongly discourage that, but for me, if I don't do it every day I won't understand and recognize that the extra helping of mashed potatoes I ate yesterday resulted in the extra pound today.  It can also go the other way - that hour on the treadmill resulted in a bonus pound loss.

Most importantly, you need goals.  The long term goal of 30 pounds by next November is great, but how do you get from Point A to Point B?  How do you know if you're on track?  I recently sat down with a calendar and determined how much weight I wanted to lose.  I don't have a particular timeline - a class reunion, a wedding, whatever, so I don't have a specific date that I need the weight gone.  I do know that I wanted to take a slow, sensible approach (especially after a stint on HcG).  I figured that for the first half of my weight loss I could do a rate of 2 pounds per week (which is pretty ambitious over time), but the second half I would do at 1 pound per week.  I figured out how long it would take me and marked the ultimate deadline on my calendar.  Then, I wrote the goal weight for each week on the calendar.  Now instead of thinking that 6 months is a long way off, I know I need to lose 2 pounds before next Tuesday.  Every "Tuesday" I plan to mark down my actual weight under the goal weight for that week.  If I'm ahead (I lost 3 pounds instead of 2 this week), I just got a cushion!

The same is true with exercise.  (I'm really paying attention to my own advice here.)  Identify the days this week you will go to the gym and the time.  Initially don't worry about what you do there or how long - just GET THERE.  Later you can set the goal for time and exercises you will do each time.  Finally, you can just identify the number of hours per week you need to exercise - how much cardio and how much strength training.

Wow, I have a lot of work to do.  Get out that calendar and get a plan!

Don't forget to check out the Fit Club every Monday for more inspiration.

cindy