Staying Accountable for Resolutions

This time of renewal flashes into our lives every January.

Couch potatoes spotted purchasing yoga mats. Recycle bins more packed than the garbage. Junkies putting down the crack. Wait, I don't know what junkies do.

It's all a package deal with the strike of midnight on New Years. We are given the opportunity for change, for improving our circumstances and making life better. Despite actually possessing this ability every day of the year, something about the rolling over of a new year makes these commitments somewhat more solid.

Breaking out of old habits, like clipping the fence to jump into moving traffic.

At least until we fall back into a lazy, distant relationship with all those commitments which would have significantly made life better had we just kept with them. My estimation is February 3rdish.

But not this year, right? (It is, afterall, still only January 10th).

So how do we make ourselves accountable when the freshness of the New Year blows away and the recirculated air of our routine reemerges?

I believe we must first develop a connection, a link between each of our committments.

Just as one, oval chain link will not suffice, an entire chain becomes one unit, strong and unified.

• A better diet and more exercise? Ride your bike to the local farmer's market.
• More exercise and keeping in touch with old friends? Write a letter for every hour of exercise you do.
• Keeping in touch with old friends and using less energy? Use regular mail instead of email.

If our resolutions depend on each other for a stronger presence, each will become easier to manifest. I see each individual goal as getting easier, the more we focus on the others. Often the first change is the most difficult to adapt, with each successive growing easier and easier. Like cookies during the holidays, each easier to consume than the last.

I think this chain idea will help me integrate more of these positive elements into my daily (post February 3rd) routine.

Don't go to the left.

Additionally, I must also give myself time. I think of it as a little present on my desk, that just pops into existence mid-work day. Under that lavishly gold sequenced bow, two whole hours to keeping my resolutions going.

I sometimes accept with the smile of a teenage boy holding his Aunt Phyllis' banana hammock birthday present. Really, I don't want this gift. Not right now at least.

Of course, to avoid family feuds over inappropriate gifts, I use the present. And, just like that boy, I learn to love it.

Just give the banana hammock a try.

Therefore, each week I will accept the gift of time to the practice of all of my new goals, at least once. Hopefully each week, this will become so second nature that the air of resolution will surround me all year long.

Ahh, the bliss of pre-February 3rd.