The One Resolution I'm Making This Year

Did you catch Kaitlin's post on resolutions? I love her method of picking the best of last year to guide her priorities in the year ahead. Definitely a must-read!

I also love the magic of the New Year and the chance it offers for a fresh start. Usually I come up with at least six or seven things in desperate need of changing—everything from how I exercise to how I mother. I end up setting goals that sound great and that I’d really love to do (meditate for ten minutes every day, do an ab workout first thing in the morning, stop eating high fructose corn syrup, read Anna Karenina), but that aren’t necessarily realistic to undertake all at once. I then spend a lot of time beating myself up for not achieving what I set out to achieve.

I recently read a fascinating article about parenting by Tania Lombrozo. The crux of her argument is that punishment rarely changes behavior, for kids or adults. This line has stuck with me: "Unconstructive self-judgment is itself a form of punishment and not a very effective one."

For perfectionists like me (you know who you are), we fear that if we stop punishing, we’ll stop perfecting. Without a critical voice playing in our heads, we’ll allow ourselves to become lazy, apathetic, or—gasp—average. But I think the exact opposite is true. When I’m at my most punishing, I’m also at my least creative, least energetic, and least happy. If I could make one change that would most positively impact nearly every area of my life, learning to disempower my inner punisher would be it.

So here’s my resolution: stop with all the self-punishment. I’m turning 30 this year and the idea of being kinder to myself seems like a great way to celebrate the end of a decade when I was often anything but.

Sounds nice, but easier said than done, right? Here’s how I plan on putting this into practice: when I start saying something to myself that I would never dream of saying to a friend, I’m going to say (out loud, as long as I’m not in the middle of Target), “Stop.” My hope is that by recognizing and stopping the behavior, I’ll be on the path to changing it, once and for all.

What's your one resolution for this year?