This is a time of year when most people talk about their resolutions. Aspects of their lives that they want to change over the course of the year. I’m all for resolutions in general. Making a decision to change your life for the better and then acting on it is one of the most powerful things you can do to change your outcomes, and the Path I follow is all about helping people achieve their positive outcomes. So why don’t I like New Year’s Resolutions?
Well, it’s because of the timescale. You make a plan to fix something this year, starting right now, and the moment you hit the first stumbling block you think “Well, I failed again, try again next year!” and make the same resolutions (and break them) every year, over and over. This isn’t helpful. We need a shorter period of time and a smaller goal in order to be effective in keeping our resolutions for any meaningful duration. So, while I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, I do believe in daily, weekly and monthly resolutions. If you stray from your resolution, no worries, just pick yourself up and try again tomorrow, next week, or next month. Don’t beat yourself up about it, especially if your goal is a healthy diet. Feeling bad about making mistakes will only make it harder to make positive choices.
Now that I’ve explained why having a specific day of the year to make resolutions is silly, let me tell you about a few of my resolutions. First is Organisation.
Recently, I was reading some organisation-type blogs, and happened across an interesting concept. Organisation, it claimed, was the only resolution you needed. Once you had everything organised and running smoothly, the difficult resolutions of exercising more, eating right, staying away from harmful influences and spending more time doing enjoyable things would all fall into place. It cited some study where people were more likely to choose a healthy snack when they were standing in a clean kitchen, and more likely to choose an unhealthy snack when they were standing in a messy kitchen.
So organisation reduces stress, eventually gives us more free time to pursue the things we want to do, and can be claimed to be the ultimate life-hack in getting the most out of your time and energy.
Second is Less Stuff. I look around me right now, and I notice I have a lot of clutter getting in my way when I try to do things. I don’t have what most people would consider to be “A Lot Of Stuff”, but I do live in a very small space, just the one room, with communal access to kitchen and bathroom. I have a bit of stuff stored under various beds where I can get away with it, but not even half of the stuff someone with their own flat might have. It’s like trying to wade through treacle. It slows me down, makes me less inclined to get stuff done because I have to move things all the time. So less stuff would be great.
Third is Creativity. I want to make more things, useful things, because the above two resolutions don’t play well with the purely ornamental. I want to sell, trade and gift these things to people who have the space for them. This is quite handy, because most of my collection of stuff is craft materials. Fabric, yarn, bits and bobs that might be useful someday. It would be impossible to sell, difficult even to give away, and I’m not a fan of throwing away anything that has the potential to be something better.
So all of this boils down to: The Great Stashbuster.
So we’ve done the whys and why nots, and the what’s, how about the hows? I’ve recently been introduced to something called HabitRPG. It’s an interesting cross between a roleplaying game and a to-do list. This immediately appealed to my inner RPG geek. It’s rather like an RPG-themed sticker chart for grown-ups. You gain experience towards levels, and play-money when you complete tasks or build habits, and lose health when you repeat bad habits or don’t do tasks. You can spend your play money on items in the game, or on custom rewards. I’m a bit of a pizza addict, so I’ve set “Order Pizza” at a cost of 50 gold coins (about 2 days of doing stuff without claiming any other rewards).
You can find HabitRPG at https://habitrpg.com, who knows, it might give you the nudge you need to meet your resolutions today/this week/this month/this year.
Painted Hide 