Resolutions vs. Inspirations

Every New Year brings with it fresh ideas; inspiration and ways to make your life better, by making resolutions. 

While this is all well and good, New Year's resolutions are infamous for one reason: they're normally impossible to keep. 

I'm in two minds about making resolutions. On the one hand, I know goals are a good thing to have. On the other, I know I'm really lousy at sticking to my goals, especially when life gets busy. I also realise that when I don't stick to them, I feel guilty and start running myself down about it, and then decide not to do anything at all. Which is worse?

On a personal level, I've come to the conclusion that resolutions are not the way to accomplish anything. Beating myself up about things that seemed important when I made the resolutions, but that I ended up not doing because life happened just doesn't feel like motivation to me. It feels like a pointless guilt trip on the road to failure. 

So if I'm not making resolutions, what am I doing to mark the turning of the calendar into a new year?

I'm making Inspirations. (Shh. I can hear you giggling all the way over here. Let me explain.)

The key difference between resolutions and inspirations, is the lack of guilt if I fail to make an inspiration. But there are other differences. For example:

Resolutions	Inspirations
I will write x number of words per day.	I will find something that inspires me to write every day.
I will go on a diet and lose x amount by x.	I will find a reason to make healthier choices every day.
I will learn to paint.	I will try to create something beautiful every day.
I will study and pass my exams.	I will find ways to enjoy my studies so that I pass easily.

I realise these aren’t concrete goals, but as you’ve probably already guessed, I don’t function very well with set goals. I’m a dreamer by nature, and that generally means that I spend my time dreaming, not doing. Being a perfectionist also means that if I set goals, everything needs to be perfect in order for me to reach them. It’s baking the cake without the right bake-ware all over again.

Don’t get me wrong, the resolutions are things I would like to achieve this year. But not at the expense of my self-esteem and motivation. Also, Inspirations encourage me to find things that have a positive meaning, and that bring joy and beauty into my life. Instead of being discouraged by not hitting my word count for the day, I’ll have found something inspiring to write about, and I will have written, even if I didn’t make two thousand words. Instead of feeling like a fat blob because I’m not losing weight, I’ll be encouraged to walk the dogs for the exercise.

Every day will bring me something new to look forward to, and with each day that passes, I will develop a new habit: Positive thinking. Which, when you think about it, is the reason that most resolutions fail.

Resolutions are, generally speaking, made while in a positive and committed frame of mind. They fail, because in the daily grind that is life today, it’s difficult to remain positive. When your boss is being the pre-menstrual bitch from hell and taking it out on you, it’s hard not to get home, crawl into bed with the chocolates and refuse to move for the entire weekend.

But, when your boss is being the pre-menstrual bitch from hell and you can get revenge by writing a novel in which she gets a terrible infection from a paper cut; it’s hard not to get excited about putting words on the page.

This method isn’t going to work for everyone and if goal setting works for you, then I say well done. You’ve achieved something I struggle with on a daily basis and I admire you for that. But for those of you like me, who find it easy to get discouraged if you miss a day and mess up your resolution; maybe you should try inspirations instead?

And if those don’t work, I’ve found that Disney stickers on a specially designed Writer’s Calendar work wonders for motivation.  *shiny*

The 2014 Writer's Calendar was created by me and can be downloaded here.