KT's Choice

I don't make resolutions anymore. Instead, I choose new systems and habits to tweak or add at the start of the year.

Working with my husband, I have started taking on more responsibility for "what we are doing." For example, I have to plan what we are going to eat, and sometimes I plan our weekend adventures—my current task is personal. I am working out how to tweak my habits and systems that I last changed up last fall. Making choices for myself and my family is one skill I can definitely improve on.

"make the hard things easy and the easy things hard." | Gretchen Rubin

Resolutions require willpower and discipline. The two things I lack in abundance. My reading in personal development confirmed for me in the last two years that I am not unique in this lack of the mojo of a go-getter. In the words of Gretchen Rubin, "make the hard things easy and the easy things hard." Getting a new good habit of following up on a resolution should not be an end-of-year task. I went to school long enough to know fall is the time to start new things, like 5th grade. It has been drilled into us since we were in primary school. As an adult, make it easy on yourself and start next year's resolutions in September when the magic of new beginnings belongs. If you have kids in your life, be an energy vampire and harvest their back-to-school excitement to jump-start your new year. Buy yourself a new pee-chees to snort the fresh school supply smell and insert your written New Year's intentions. So when January rolls around and the intoxicating effects of holiday candy, cake, and family, you have a plan already in the works, and it smells like a fresh pee-chee.