Old Habits...New Year

Okay...so have you ever tried to start a new habit? I bet every year when the ball drops you think of new habits that you would like to start and old ones you would like to get rid of. And whether or not you make formal goals, like I did, you know what you want to work on and the habits you would like to form.

I think I read yesterday that exercise and organization are the two most common goals or resolutions made for the new year, and I heard on Sunday at church that something less than 40% actually achieve any of their goals or resolutions.

I have always been a fairly goal oriented person on a very small scale. Mostly at work because there I am an over achiever. Okay...I will admit that I try to be an over achiever everywhere. For this reason new habits are really hard for me to establish.

You are probably thinking this is counter intuitive. Right? If you are an over achiever don't you make goals and complete them and excel. Well...maybe if you are not also a perfectionist. I have learned that my perfectionism gets in the way of my goals. I want to achieve them and I work really hard at all of them at the same time for about two weeks, tops. Then I just burn out. Once this burn out hits I delve into this deep depression because I am an over achiever and I have failed.

So I made five goals this year, like every year. And it is the middle of the second week of the year, and guess where I am? Close to burn out. Yup, that's right, very close. But I am still plugging away. I decided that maybe it was better for me to work on just one goal at a time, and add a new goal when I get the first one under my belt. Well, this doesn't actually work either because I am so ready to check the first one off my list that I burn myself out with the first one.

In attempt to thwart the deep depression that I can see on horizon that will last rest of the year I am trying to take action right now. I don't like living as a slave to my emotions or chemical imbalance, whichever you want to call it. So this is what I am doing today, just today. I am not even thinking about tomorrow. Thanks to flylady, I am shining my sink today, and I am setting up a bedtime and morning routine. These are to work toward organizing my home. Nothing more, and I don't have to be perfect, right?