Six Self-Care Hacks to Replace New Year’s Resolutions with New Solutions

Everyone stresses about New Year’s Resolutions this time of year, but what we really need are new solutions to problems that bother us. Here’s how to come up with new solutions.

Imagine having this conversation with your spouse:

“I resolve to put away the suitcases,” you say.

“Ok,” your spouse says slowly. “When?”

“I don’t know, but I resolve to do it!”

Three weeks later, you stub your toe on the suitcase sitting next to the door leading to the basement. “Ouch! I really need to follow up on my resolution to put these away,” you chide yourself.

“I could have taken them down weeks ago,” you think you hear your spouse mumble.

“But, I’m too busy to take care of it right now,” you say with a frown. “I haven’t forgotten my resolution, though!”

Six months later, the suitcases remain next to the door. You’ve learned to clean around them, and frankly, don’t notice them very often. Occasionally, guilt nibbles at the corner of your mind as you think about your lofty resolution to put the suitcases away right after your last trip. At this point, you’ll need them in a few weeks, so you might as well wait until after your next trip to put them away.

Sound silly? Absolutely! But the word ‘resolve’ doesn’t mean to do. Instead of wasting energy making (and never keeping) New Year’s Resolutions, we need a different plan to make progress in our lives.

We need new solutions to old problems. Most of us already know what areas of our lives we’d like to improve. Maybe we want to lose weight, get healthier, or use our time more effectively. And those vague ideas make great-sounding New Year’s resolutions. But they are about as effective as resolving to put away a suitcase.

New solutions, on the other hand, allow us to look at problems differently and come up with not only our motivation but a plan for success. Today’s podcast will lead you through six steps to ditch your resolutions and start forming new solutions. If you put these into practice, you’ll find yourself energized by your successes and ready to formulate more new solutions.

Here’s a series on goal-setting and habit-forming that will help you.

If you’ve never heard of the after-action review concept, this post will help.

Join me next week when I talk about how to get angry without losing your cool.

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