I’ve decided to make New Year’s goals instead of resolutions. I’ve never really believed in resolutions at the New Year, because I don’t enjoy setting myself up for failure. Why is it we believe that just because the calendar changed, we will too? What is it about throwing out the used calendar for a new one that makes us long for a fresh start? What is it that makes us think we can or will do anything differently? If we really wanted to change, why didn’t we do it on December 14th or some other equally random date?
Resolution sounds so cliché, like something that can be dismissed rather than achieved. So with my approach to call that thing we do at the New Year a goal, and with a somewhat self-righteous attitude, I looked up the difference between goal and resolution to prove I was right.
Turns out resolutions are steps to achieving a goal.
“I resolve never to eat peanut butter cups again,” doesn’t sound particularly realistic for someone who adores Reese’s Peanut Butter cups. It sounds more like my youngest daughter when she was young. Whenever she got angry, which could be prompted by trying some new, distasteful food, she’d make bold proclamations – “I’m never eating again!”
I resolve to eat only one peanut butter cup instead of the whole two-cup package is a more sensible goal. It’s ultimately semantics; how something is worded. We have to choose words we can live with. To me resolution feels like something I can fail at. Goals are something I can break down into manageable tasks.
However, is my goal smashed to bits if I have a package with half-pound peanut butter cups? (That’s a pound of peanut butter cups.) If I say I’m only going to eat one of those humongous cups at 1140 calories, have I achieved my resolution? Or have I just fooled myself into thinking I’m working my way towards giving up peanut butter cups? (Seriously, they make those and they’re half price after Christmas.)
Maybe the resolution is to only eat the equivalent of one regular, eighty-seven calorie peanut butter cup. Or maybe the ultimate goal is admitting that one regular peanut butter cup is a serving, not two. Or is that a resolution?
Weight loss is a typical New Year’s resolution for many people. I’m not saying I’m committing or not to that particular goal, though if you know me personally, you know I could use it. I’m just saying that if I work towards a healthier weight it feels more doable than being resolute to lose weight.
It allows me to make mistakes and not get bumped off the wagon every time I chomp into a half pound Reese’s Peanut Butter cup.
Who’s to know how much weight a person could lose in any given month? I can’t leap into January saying to myself I’m going to lose fifty pounds. Because when I decide I want to lose fifty pounds, I usually mean that I want to do that in my spare time over the weekend. I hate the constant diligence it takes to watch what I eat.
But if I work towards losing five pounds this month by only eating one peanut butter cup, it feels more doable. Keeping the short term goal in front of me doesn’t feel as overwhelming as looking at the whole fifty pounds.
However, when faced with a half-pound Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, one should definitely resolve to cut it up into 17 gram pieces (one serving) and share it. See? Small goals broken down into manageable bites – uh resolutions.
Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.”or follow her on Twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.
