FROM GOALS TO HABITS

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were filled with so much love and family and food and fun. We have had such a sweet time in Texas visiting family for the past few weeks, but I have to say I’m ready to get back home to our regular routine.

What are your thoughts on resolutions? I’ve never really been big on resolutions or the idea of waiting till January 1 to commit to something new. Resolutions also seem like they have to be a big declaration, often around eating and weight loss, and then there’s this looming sense of failure when you don’t accomplish it or stick to it.

A friend shared with our Mom’s Group that she wanted to focus on developing better habits in the new year and challenged us to join her. I love this idea so much because I feel like habits contribute to growth.

So what is the difference between Resolutions and Habits?

Resolutions are generally goal-oriented, but often don’t have a plan attached to them. For example, “I want to lose 40 pounds in 2024.”

Habits are typically more specific, concrete and measurable. When you develop habits, you are creating daily behaviors that eventually become unconscious actions in your daily life. Habits can help you reach your resolutions, but often not the other way around.

Here’s how our challenge is going to work. I’d encourage you to grab a group of friends and do something like this! I find it so much easier and more motivating to stay accountable to friends than if I’m just doing it alone.

Habit Challenge:

Choose five measurable daily habits you want to work on (for example: drink 64 oz of water, read for 20 minutes per day, no social media from 5-8 PM, etc.).

Share your goals with your group, spouse, family, etc. Each person keeps track of their daily habit progress. At the end of the time frame you’ve set, do something to celebrate. For our group, we are going to go out to dinner for a celebration at the end of the month and the person with the most points will get a prize!z

There are lots of great apps you can use to track your daily habits. Some are paid and some are free. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You can also use good old fashion pencil and paper!

If you are an app person, here’s a few that different people in our group have shared they are using:

• Habit Tracker

• DayStamp

• Productive - Habit Tracker

• Done: A Simple Habit Tracker

Here are the five habits that I’m working on for January and I’m using the DayStamp App.

I wanted a habit focused on my marriage, a habit focused on the kids, a habit focused on my spiritual development and something related to better overall health.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Are you a resolution or habit person? Have you made any goals for the new year?