This is message smacked me in the face. I do want to be a better person, right? But ehh...things aren't so bad now. In fact, if things never changed, my life would be a-okay. So I am the definition of ambivalent.
I spent last month of my psychiatry residency in the substance abuse clinic, where ambivalence rules all. I started reading a really great book, Motivational Interviewing by Miller & Rollnick. It talks about ambivalence and how to help people change. Often when you badger and tell people they need to change, they dig in their feet, back further into their corner and tell you how hard it is to change and why they can't change. Which is fine, it's human nature - when your mom tells you to clean your room, you don't say "oh thanks!!" No. You tell her how you're too busy, this isn't a priority and basically remind her you're not a horrible person. The book stresses that people learn much better when they think of reasons to change themselves and then share the reasons why change would be beneficial. People learn a lot by hearing themselves talk. So you want to them to talk about why they should change, not why they shouldn't.
So anyways, I'm wondering how this can work on myself. Can I self-motivate myself to change? Stop making excuses and start telling myself more reasons why? We'll see. Anyways here are some goals for myself. I feel like last year all the bloggers were doing 101 in 1001. Like completing 101 tasks or goals in 1001 days. That just seems like too much and too obscure to me. So I decided to come up with 12 goals for 12 months, working on all and hopefully completing 1 a month. Some are serious, some are fun.
2 Arrive at places 10 minutes early.
3 Focus on being a considerate and caring wife.
4 Focus on one cookbook a month and cook at least 2 recipes from this book a week - starting in February when I'm off of night float. I have some awesome cookbooks I would like to use over just googling what's for dinner.
5 If Aaron and I do not go or stream church on Sunday, watch the sermon by Tuesday that week.
6 Finish my South Africa photobook.
7 Regularly limit my sugar intake to 25g a day, at least 4 out of 7 days a week - I already took big steps towards achieving this in 2013. I read all labels, stopped eating a lot of foods.
8 Work out twice a week and weigh myself weekly. I've also taken big steps towards this in 2013, usually only not working out due to work obligations. I also think if I weight myself while at the gym I'll be better at maintaining my weight and not letting weight gain creep up on me.
9 Instead of feeling like getting ready for bed is a burden, make it more of spa and pampering experience. I have a Pandora spa music station-maybe I should buy incense too? Relaxation!
10 Work on building a nest egg with Aaron. We have been saving for retirement, but we need to do a better job of keeping a bank account for unexpected expenses and future large purchases.
11 Make my mother a wedding album.
12 Redecorate the bedroom Already working like crazy on this one. I told Aaron when we move into our "dream house" I just need to hire a designer because honestly I've wasted so much money in the bedroom I could have just funneled that into buying the rights things first.
Wish me luck!!! What are your resolutions?
