Last night, preparing to welcome in 2011, I was pondering New Year’s Resolutions. I still make them, though over the years I have learned to make concrete, do-able resolutions rather than broad sweeping ones like “get fit” or “get organized.”
In that vein, I started to contemplate. I recently read some “best resolutions” in a magazine and one lady said she vowed to try 3 new recipes a week. I thought, “that’s a bit too much, but what about one new recipe?” Then I got to thinking, “I’d really like to clean my office out this year and make it more of a haven, but how to do that? Maybe clean up and get rid of one thing a week?” Could I do anything else, one thing at a time? Eventually, my resolution crystallized into “one new thing.” I plan to try to do at least one new thing per week this year. It may be a new recipe or signing up for a cooking class or a new fitness move from a magazine. Small or large, it doesn’t matter.
Then I thought a little further. What would these new things do for me? Hopefully they’d be good. Maybe I should call it “one good thing.” Then I thought, heck, good things happen every day, maybe I should resolve to take note of them. That’s when I decided to go out today and pick up a pretty journal to keep next to my bed and every night look back on the day and make a quick note of the “one good thing” I could say about that day. It’s not a gratitude journal, it’s just an acknowledgment that every day brings SOMETHING that’s good, no matter how tired and cranky and down we might feel sometimes.
Of course I will pursue “one new thing” as well.
What’s your New Year’s Resolution?
