My husband, Jake, and I will have been married for twelve years in May, we’re expecting our fourth baby in March and we have had many discussions on New Year’s Resolutions. Are they even worth making? Why do we make them in the first place? Has anyone actually achieved those resolutions, or do they get set aside a few weeks later like most good intentions?
My viewpoint on New Years’ Resolutions is perhaps a bit cynical. Since being an adult, I’ve always struggled with even making New Year’s Resolutions, because I feel I never get close to accomplishing them. In January, I say I want to lose weight, I’ll start that new diet and begin working out, but by February there is some reason or another that those goals have gone by the wayside. So, when my husband asks, “What are your resolutions for this year?” I kind of sigh and make up a half-hearted list, all the while thinking about how those things may not happen.
“This year is going to be different!” I know I’ve said that before, too many times to count, but hear me out…This year’s resolutions are going to be centered around HOPE.
Jake, in such a loving way, has shared his view on New Year’s Resolutions and helped me to see them in a little different light. First, he says to start with thankfulness and gratitude. Instead of thinking about all the failed resolutions in the last year, focus on the things you HAVE accomplished. He calls it making a “reverse bucket list”. Make your own reverse bucket list, I bet that it is much longer than you think, I know mine was! Beginning with gratitude fills you with hope for a better tomorrow.
Next, begin thinking about what goals you might want to accomplish. This is where we dream big friends, don’t be afraid! Jake says, “If you don’t have a trajectory or vision, you won’t accomplish anything”. Instead of thinking of New Year’s Resolutions as hard and fast rules, think of them as guidelines directing your year, and by next year there will be a whole new list of accomplishments to be grateful for.
Most people, like me, don’t like to set New Year’s Resolutions because they are afraid to fail, but my husband’s view comes from his love for the Man in the Arena quote by Theodore Roosevelt,
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
It is always okay to fail, because even if you don’t accomplish all your resolutions, you have placed yourself in the arena, and inevitably grown in the process.
Friends, I think I am a New Year’s Resolutions convert. This year I plan to begin with thankfulness and gratitude, set some goals to guide the trajectory of my year and know that even if I fail, I failed “while daring greatly.” So, here’s to hope and New Year’s Resolutions!