Monday 7 January 2013

New year, new habits

First of all, happy new year, everyone!! I hope your year has got off to a great start. Mine has. :-)


2013. A fresh start! A clean slate! So, what shall we do with it? Well, this is the time of the year that most people go crazy setting themselves impossible New Years' resolutions, of which apparently 88% fail inevitably fail. Still, we continue to make (and break) them - but not me.

I decided years ago to focus on living every day instead of feeling pressured to set myself up for failure in a few weeks' time. I'm not saying that I don't strive or aim for anything, but I'd like to think I'm smarter about how I live my life now and more determined to appreciate the little things that happen every day. I find bucket lists incredibly annoying; why make death the focal point of a project, when life is for living every day? (My 101 in 1001 project was fantastic, as is my recipe for living.)

There are some things I'd like to start in 2013; they are more like good habits I would like to develop than unrealistic resolutions I'm unlikely to achieve. Popular myth has us believe that it takes 21 days to form a new habit, but apparently there is no magic number.

I have downloaded the free Lift app for setting and 'checking in' with new habits. You can choose to join a range of habits that others have already set or make up some of your own. I won't bore you with the tedium of how often I plan to floss my teeth, but there is one new habit that I am really keen to establish: Cook a meal to freeze each week. I am hoping that if I can get ahead by cooking a 'spare' healthy meal each weekend that it will help to alleviate some of the Friday night tiredness/cheap and cheerful temptation/got home late "I'm too tired to cook"/"What's in the freezer that we can cook quickly" syndrome. I've made a start and already have one meal frozen, which I cooked alongside dinner on Saturday night. So far, so good.

In addition, I'm using MapMyWalk to keep track of my training for Round the Bays and have a small habit based around filling an empty jar with good things that happen, although my jar is likely to be more metaphorical than physical.

So how's 2013 looking for you? What do you have planned for this bright, shiny new year?

1 comment:

~JarieLyn~ said...

De-Clutter. That's my plan for the new year. I really want to scale down the stuff I have because a lot of it is sitting in a pile just collecting dust.