Revisiting New Year’s Resolutions: Tips to Make Them Stick

If you’re anything like me, it’s hard to believe we are starring down February already.

Many of us faced the new year with gusto, determined to make this the year to lose that extra weight, reconnect with our spouse, get out of debt, get more organized, — as the calendar turned to 2012.

Takes more than gusto

Those with even the best of intentions though, find the road to better health and fitness, or crawling out from under mounds of debt, requires more than gusto and the promise of a fresh, new year.

In my private practice, as February breaths down our necks, I’m starting to hear a familiar theme with my clients. Many are sniffing failure, only 30 some days into 2012.

So, how can you set yourself up for success and salvage any lingering enthusiasm to get ‘er done this year?

Tips for success

Start by reframing the idea of “resolutions,” and instead, set an intention for the year. Make this the year of living a healthier lifestyle, or the year you liberate yourself from debt. “Intentions” don’t carry the same weight—pun intended, that “resolutions” do.

Next, once you’ve set your intention, set goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.

Keep in mind, to experience lasting change, go slowly.

Slow and steady

The success of small victories will fan the flames you’ll need to reach your ultimate goal. Embrace the adage, slow and steady wins the race. Clients that sprint out of New Year’s Eve often peter out before its time to find a Valentine.

Losing weight

For example, let’s take the popular goal of losing weight. Clients drenched in enthusiasm tell themselves things like, “Every day after work, I’m going to go to the gym,” or “I’m going to eat healthy from now on.” Sounds terrific—but if you haven’t graced the insides of a locker room since high school, or, have dined at the local hamburger joint, noshing on cheeseburgers and fries for the last ten years, the likelihood you’ll stick to either goal is slimmer than Dolly Parton’s waist.

Instead, tell yourself you will go to the gym twice a week, and feed off of the success of doing so before you add a third day. Or, tell yourself you will eat a healthy breakfast for two weeks and see how that goes. Once you’ve grown accustomed to a healthy protein shake, egg whites and fruit, set a goal for lunch.

Set yourself up for success by thinking big but setting small, specific, realistic, measurable, attainable and timely goals.

Before you know it, frost will be on the pumpkins and Santa Claus will be coming back to town and you—will be debt free or fitting back into your favorite pair of jeans.

I’d love to hear how things are going. Shoot me a note here or on my Facebook or Twitter pages. Now go— get ‘er done!

Please help me extend a warm welcome to Lauren.

Lauren lost her Mom when she was just 20 years old to cancer.

She and I met via Twitter and I’m thrilled to share a guest post from her about how she came about to  establish a wonderful organization called, Trauma 2 Art to help those dealing with loss process their experience through art.

If you are in the Washington, DC area, please check out an upcoming event to benefit this fabulous cause!

Lauren, you are one brave daughter. Keep up the good work. My heart goes with you.

And now here is Lauren’s story… Read more

Happy Valentine’s Day!

While I’m spending the evening with my honey, celebrating the 26th anniversary of our first date, I thought I’d encore a post I wrote late summer with tips on how we’ve made our marriage last for over twenty years.

People ask us what our “secret” is.

Here’s the top twenty reasons why our marriage works along with a few secrets.

Feel free to add your ideas in the comment section.

Wishing everyone love today…in one form or another.

How We’ve Stayed Happily Married for Twenty Years

We can no longer ignore that there is a host of reality television stars who are educating our kids.

I don’t like it and I’d prefer to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich. That tact however, will leave me starved for air and my nieces and nephews without the benefit of a moral and cultural counterpoint to the “GTL” (gym, tan, laundry) lifestyle.

I’m an aunt to forty nieces and nephews all by relation and many of them they love the “Jersey Shore.” Their facination with these pop-culture nitwits finds me reaching for my rosary beads. It’s gonna be a cold day in hell before I sit back and let these morally devoid characters corrupt my little darlings. So, what’s an auntie to do?

Here’s what I came up with. Read more

Several years ago, I made the difficult decision to leave my work at hospice as the coordinator of the children’s grief and loss program to go back into private practice and pursue some of my own life-long dreams. It was not a decision I made lightly.

My days were spent counseling and supporting families and their children who were dealing with life’s cruelest and most crushing blow–the death of a loved one. I listened as families shared their stories of crossing things off their bucket lists while time graciously offered them the opportunity.

The work changed my life but after several years of companioning grieving children and their families, I got to thinking: What are my own dreams? What if the end of my own life is approaching faster than I know?

For months and months I pondered, “What would I do?”

What I came up with is that I would go back into private practice and pursue my dream to be a… Read more

Happy New Year!

The end of January is fast approaching and for me, it can’t come soon enough.

While February is more attractive than January — it’s May, June and July I’m PINING away for.

As I write this post it is only seven degrees outside. Seven. Here on the east coast, that’s darn freezing. We can do temperatures in the twenties with moderate complaining but seven degrees brings out the Debbie Dower in just about everyone.

I hope your holidays were full of mason jar moments.Spending time with my family ranks numero uno on my list of things that make my heart burst with love and thank God, I got to do lots of it over the holidays.

Family

Speaking of family, this year’s first post comes from my brother-in-law who is working in Afghanistan for a year. We were lucky he was able to make it home for the holidays and God willing he will be home safe and sound permanently July 1. Please remember him, our troops and all those working overseas in your thoughts and prayers.

After almost 48 hours of traveling and a week back on his base, my brother-in-law sent out an email and shared some beautiful insights about what this experience has taught him. With his permission, I’m sharing it here with you.

I hope your new year is off to a wonderful start. And now, What I’ve Learned from my brother-in-law.

I’ve learned that, no matter what happens, how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.  In time, all things must pass.

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles four things:   a rainy day, the elderly, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.

I’ve learned that, regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ‘life..’

I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands.  You need to be able to throw something back sometimes.

I’ve learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you.  But, if you focus on your family, your friends, the needs of others, your work and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you.

I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.

I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one.

I’ve learned that every day, you should reach out and touch someone.   People love that human touch — holding hands, a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.

I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn.

What have YOU learned?

While I’m off enjoying some time with family and friends you might want to check out my latest piece at Savvy Auntie.

This time of the year is tough for many. Nostalgia has a way of creeping in at our holidays tables. For those actively grieving, this time of the year can be riddled with pangs of sadness. Even more so, people who long to have children struggle as well. In my latest column at Savvy Auntie, I share some tips on how to survive this time of year when dealing with infertility or longing for children of our own.

Gobble, gobble!

Happy Friday!

I’m taking a break this week. I’ll be posting next Tuesday and then will take some time off from blogging until early December.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m grateful to all of you who stop by. Blessings to you and your families!

Happy Tuesday!

This week’s tip comes courtesy of a follow-up piece I wrote for Laura Munson on how to manage our inner critical voices.

I listed three other strategies for quieting these loud-mouth parts of our personalities. Stop on over to see Laura for the full post.

Next week, I’ll be writing about how to manage grief around the holidays. It can be such a tough time of the year. I don’t know about you guys but I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving!

Happy Tuesday!

This week’s tip you’ll find in detail if you head on over to my author friend, Laura Munson’s blog, These Here Hills.

Laura is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, “This Is Not the Story You Think It Is,” a memoir about adopting an attitude of non-suffering. It’s wise, funny and absent of anything Pollyana. It now sits on my shelf next to Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Kelly Corrigan’s, The Middle Place. A coveted spot indeed.

Laura was gracious enough to let me write a guest column for her November newsletter about quieting our inner critic.

To read the entire piece, head on over to visit Laura. She’s a terrific virtual hostess and tell her I send ya but first, how do you quiet your inner critic?

And now, a sneak peak at I am the Ultimate…

When I was in eighth grade, about fourteen years old, I feel in love. Not with some young, strapping, adolescent fresh-faced boy with peach fuzz perched over his top lip.

Nope.

Not even with a human.

I fell hard and fast for a word, a word when said out loud made me pitch over like a fainting goat.  It had an air of pretense and yet consciously I despised pretense because it did precisely to me what it is designed to do-foster inferiority. This word, however, strung together with seven perfect letters, relegated me to the likes of a Marcia Brady type-the Marcia who pined away for Davy Jones from the Monkees.

The word was ultimate and when I prefaced it with the, I decided we should declare our love publicly.

“I am The Ultimate,” became the signature phrase I used to announce my triumphant arrival into a room. Arms open wide, forming a big Y over my head; I made a grand entrance afterschool one afternoon when I greeted my Mom in the kitchen.

My Mom came from hearty Irish stock and as my Dad says was, “a real lady.” My father embraced his self-appointed role as God’s laughter lieutenant and gravitates to the spotlight. My Mom, in contrast, preferred to play the part of a spectator. She raised the five of us to embrace humility and while she found us entertaining she went to great lengths to be sure we knew our place.

She canned applesauce every fall from the apples she and my aunt picked at our local orchard and taught us about the birds and the bees without one euphemism. On winter Sunday afternoons, she curled up in the crushed orange velvet recliner in her bedroom and soaked in the sunny spot by the sliding glass door. After reciting her daily rosary, she wandered off into the worlds that lived inside the stack of books resting on her glass-top table.

That fall afternoon, she must have had enough of my shenanigans and found my love affair with the word ultimate no longer tolerable or appropriate.

Still dressed in my Catholic school uniform, I hiked up my skirt and with my white blouse inching up over my belly I hopped up on the countertop and reached for a glass.

“I am The Ultimate,” I repeated; poking around in the cabinet propped up on the laminate, marble countertop.

Just as I found my favorite glass, my Mom tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Steffi, stop saying that.” She lent me her hand to get down. “It’s not very becoming.”

Click here to read the entire piece.

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