Goals: take it easy on yourself

If your Christmas was as un-Martha Stewart as mine, the post holiday blues may leave you wondering what's wrong with you. That slump is the motivation for never-ending lists of unreachable New Year's resolutions. Don't give in. What makes millions of people wake up on the same day and vow to change their ways? The holiday season makes the best of us feel less than perfect. Did your light display knock out power to the entire neighborhood? Maybe your kids saw you fighting with a stranger in the middle of Wal-Mart over a toy. Don't respond to holiday stress by punishing yourself. Self-improvement is supposed to make you feel better about yourself. Maxing-out credit cards and burning Christmas dinner may leave you humble and open for self-improvement, but try to take it easy. Most of the resolutions I hear are concerning weight or exercise. I have to wonder how many people binge on everything fried or chocolatey up until Jan. 1, then start their New Year fast. With such drastic resolutions, it seems unlikely you'll last 365 days. Aiming too high with New Year's resolutions will make you feel even worse if you fail. Similarly, it's not likely you will carry a list around with 20 goals, even if they are easy. So stick to a few goals. Choose goals that will be easy to implement and easy to stick to. Easy goals serve two purposes. First, you are proud of yourself; even if the goal was simple you still did it. You still rock. Second, you actually accomplish something - and that is always better than nothing. "Nothing" is the result of a resolution that was set too high. You can still improve with little goals. Let me offer an example. For the past three years I have made it my goal to go without chocolate. Each year that goal lasted maybe one week. In all, that is only three weeks. If, however, my goal had been to only eat half of every chocolate bar I was ever offered, I would have been more successful. I would not have been defeated so easily and would have eaten 50 percent less chocolate than I did. Certainly that's the equivalent of one solid chocolate school bus. This year, be kind to yourself. If your resolution is too hard, you are't going to keep it up. Don't buy the gym membership you will never use. Be more realistic. Go shopping at the mall a lot, just park really far away so you walk further.