Resolutions? Nah, not for me!

Happy New Year!

I'm not doing resolutions any more. I'm an all-or-nothing kind of gal and if I don't achieve my resolution perfectly, then I feel like a failure. So no more resolutions.

But I want to lose weight. I want a clean, sparkly house at all times. I want to be more patient. I want to be more faithful in my Bible studies.

And I will...I will lose weight. I will have a cleaner house (sparkly is a bit too much with 2 boys and a farrier for a husband). I will be more patient. And I will be more faithful in my Bible studies.

How am I going to achieve this? The same way my husband and I have worked on our finances...one baby step at a time. We attended Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church back in the winter/spring of 2007. If you've never heard of this, check out Dave Ramsey's site here. We haven't used a credit card or taken out another loan since. We are on track to be debt-free except the mortgage by the end of the year, if not sooner. And it happened with 2 things...making small steps and just believing that we'd make it. It's not been easy and there have been many times that I felt like a failure - but we never gave up because our mindset had changed so much. There was no going back to the old way.

So I am going to apply the same principles to other areas of my life. I am going to write down small, manageable steps and I am going to believe in my ability to achieve them. I am going to work on my mindset so that going back to the old way is no longer an acceptable option for me.

I've seen others working on a fun challenge for this year - get rid of 2010 items this year. That's an average of 5.5 items a day (if you started on New Year's Day). It sounds like a lot until you look around at all the stuff in your house. Since I had already planned on working on the house tomorrow, I'm going to see how big of a start I can get on getting rid of 2010 items. I know there are holey socks in my boys' bureau. Does each sock count or is it 1 point for a pair? I guess we can make up our own rules! (I say 1 point per sock - odd socks can be used as cleaning rags).