Habits, not Resolutions!

Ah, welcome, my friends, to 2012!!  I hope that you all had a blessed Christmas and a fun and happy New Year celebration!  I've been somewhat MIA on my blog, as I started the Christmas week with strep, which quickly moved into a rather nasty sinus infection.  We postponed our trip for Christmas by one day, and so have just arrived back home and are getting settled back in.  Our "girls," who were at the doggie spa for a week, were happy to see us, and have needed a little extra attention these past few days as they felt neglected over the holidays!

So, it seems that the blog topic for the week is New Years Resolutions.  Do you make them?  I have for years, and have just as consistently failed at most of them!!  Anyone know what I mean?  I resolve to lose weight.  Mmmmm, not so successful.  I resolve to exercise more.  Does shopping count?  I resolve to quit (fill in the blank.)  I'll say "chewing my nails."  (Nervous habit I've had since I was young.)  Never happened.  And each year, I feel a little worse about myself.  Anyone else feel this way?  Ever?  Well, I've decided to change my thinking this year, and do things a little differently.  Instead of making resolutions, I'm going to change habits.  Yep.  You heard me.  Big difference.

For one thing, when you set resolutions, they are often arbitrary, and so you are spending all your effort working towards something that is (basically) meaningless -- IE. "I'm going to 'get fit' in 2012." And then if you don’t achieve it, you feel like you failed, even though you didn't define what "get fit" meant.  Did it mean exercising more?  Eating better?  Changing habits is different, if you approach it with an attitude of “this is one little change I can make and I will enjoy the change as I do it."  Another thing we do to set ourselves up for New Year's failure is trying to do too much at once.  Ten resolutions.  I'm going to eat better, exercise more, get up an hour earlier, blah blah blah.  And when we fall off the wagon with one, more often than not we fall of the entire track, because why bother?  You can make a list of habits you want to change.  That's fine.  But don't change more than one habit at once.  Why?  Because it takes about 30 days to create a new habit.  So, if you plan just one little change a month, in a year you'll have formed 12 new habits!  

To start myself off for 2012, the habit I want to change is how often I post to my blog.  So I've created the following schedule to follow, to make myself accountable, and to hopefully keep you all coming back for more!

Blog planner 2012:

Weekly:

• Project Life – Weekly on Tuesday
• 52 Photos – Weekly on Wednesday
• Gratitude Journal – Weekly on Saturday
• Sunday Scriptures – Weekly on Sunday

Monthly: 

• One Little Word – Monthly on the 2^nd Monday
• Scrapbook*Life* Journal Class – monthly on the 2^nd Thursday 
• Close to My Heart 
• Layout/Playgroup – Monthly on the 4^th Monday 
• Stamp of the Month Card – Monthly on the 4^th Thursday 
• Studio J Layout – Monthly on the 4^th Friday

As needed:

·         CTMH Special Projects

·         CTMH Constant Campaigns

·         Art Journaling & Sketching

There may be a few things added or taken off of this list as I fine tune my year, but I hope that you'll follow the posts that interest you, and encourage your friends to, as well.  

I'll be back tomorrow with a NEW Close to My Heart Special, and later this week with a "Special Project" that relates to my "changing habits" goal for 2012.  Check back soon!  You won't want to miss it!  Until next time,