Finally…How to Actually Accomplish Your “New You” Resolutions

A wise woman by the name of Nancy Glauser once told me, “If you consider the impact of a small thing, there is no such thing as a small thing.”

As women (and maybe men might do this too), we can overcomplicate the smallest tasks.

I don’t know about you, but if someone mentioned “self-care” I used to feel like I needed to wake up 4 hours earlier than I usually do, complete an hour's worth of exercise, take a nice long shower, make myself a giant breakfast consisting of eggs, avocados, a garden salad, green juice, and some vitamins on the side, and read my favorite book all before my family got up in the morning, so I could be the greatest mom and wife in the world.

That's me exaggerating a little, but I think we can all relate.

The thing is you don’t need to pencil in some big routine to get your self-care in for the day, and you don’t have to become a new person overnight either.

In fact, the best way you can start feeling happier and calmer in your life is by implementing a self-care routine that consists of small changes that are easy to do.

The Power of Small Things

If you’re like 99% of Western Civilization, you’ve probably made a New Year’s Resolution. Maybe it was going to the gym every day, starting a new diet, starting a new hobby, or D all of the above.

And I’m sure, like the majority of Western cultures, your resolution lasted about 2 weeks (some more, some less, but probably not past February).

But…why?

How come so many people feel so committed to their new way of living, but they end up giving up on it after the first day?

The answer is pretty simple. Change is hard.

Whenever I've tried to work out for thirty minutes to an hour a day, it didn’t happen because I wasn’t even working out for 1 min a day.

However, when I’ve given myself a smaller goal to start out with, I’ve gotten a lot better results.

For example, I’ve always wanted to read some type of scripture every day, because I wanted more of God’s word in my life, but I was really bad at it. 

At first, I tried setting too big of a goal–study for an hour a day. That didn’t work.

Then I tried setting a smaller goal–read something (even if it’s just a verse) every day. I had to do some adjustments here and there to find a routine that worked for me, but eventually, I found out that reading scripture on my phone right before bed gave me the best results.

Now, I’m reading every single day. Woo Hoo!

The Path to Become

The moral of the story is this: 

We can reach any goal we want to accomplish if we take it one small change at a time.

Almost 2500 years ago, there was a Greek poet by the name of Archilochus. He said, “We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.”

That means if you want to be better, feel better, and get more done, then start “training” to be the person you’d like to become.

If you want to feel happier, what’s a small change you can make today that will make you feel happier?

If you want to feel calmer, what’s a small change you can make today that will make you feel calmer?

For me, I wanted to include God more in my life, so I did that.

Now I can work on my next step, which will include exercise. I’m sure it will start out as 10-minute workout videos on YouTube, but hey 10 minutes is better than nothing, and eventually, I’ll get to that recommended 30 min mark.

Yay for small changes!

How have you seen small changes impact your life? Comment Below!