I love New Year's resolutions. I relish putting together long lists of ambitious goals every December 31st, and waking up on January 1, ready for my new, perfect, problem-free life! Needless to say, I never have quite found the resolution list that actually accomplishes all of that; in fact, I usually end up forgetting half of my New Year's goals, and only partially hitting the others.
Nevertheless, I still find making resolutions to be a fruitful exercise: It's a chance to take a high-level look at where my life is compared to where I'd like it to be. It's a day to sit down and ask hard questions about whether or not my actual priorities are in line with my stated priorities. And, even when I fall short of my own goals, I find that even coming close to them makes things better. For example, there was that year that I said I'd lose 20 pounds and I only lost five -- yet in the process I learned a ton about nutrition, discovered some food sensitivities I had, and paved the way for the next year when I actually would lose the weight.
But this year things are different. When a friend called to ask what resolutions I'd made, she expected for me to jump into action and zealously recite a mile-long list. Instead I said with a sigh, "I think I'm just going to try to survive this day."
An undiagnosed issue with my pregnancy has left me fatigued to the point of barely functioning, and over the past few weeks the house has slid into chaos. Even with my husband helping as much as he can, mountains of unfolded laundry pile up in the bedroom, the sink always has at least a few dirty dishes sitting in it, and I'm sure that somewhere in the mess of papers on the inbox on my desk are bills that are about to be late. I'm sure this is my fatigue-induced pessimism talking, but sometimes it feels like I'm so behind on everything that I'll never catch up again. In a phase like this one, grand resolutions can feel pointless.
I had decided to scrap the entire concept and spend my New Year's Eve wallowing in some extra-rich self-pity, but my husband encouraged me to find some small resolution I could make. He pointed out that it would probably make me feel better to accomplish one or two things, even if they were small. His idea sounded a little more inspiring than my current New Year's Eve plans, so I decided to give it a shot.
Being as overwhelmed as I am, the main problem was that I didn't know where to start. When I thought of "things in my life that could use improvement," I would become overwhelmed by the flood of options that came to mind. So I made up a little life inventory list that included all the most important areas of my life (not necessarily in priority order):
- MARRIAGE
- RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KIDS
- SPIRITUAL LIFE
- HOMESCHOOLING
- HOUSEKEEPING
- HEALTH
- SOCIAL LIFE
- WORK / OUTSIDE COMMITMENTS
There were only a couple of areas where I felt that all was going well and few improvements could be made. For each of the others, I asked myself the following questions:
- What is the biggest problem I am I having in this area?
- What are the causes of that problem?
- What has been preventing me from solving that problem?
To give you an example, here were my answers for the Spiritual Life section:
- What is the biggest problem I am I having in this area? I'm not starting the day with prayer. This always leads me to have a lax attitude about prayer (and many other things) for the rest of the day.
- What are the causes of that problem? I've been sleeping in because I'm staying up too late.
- What has been preventing me from solving that problem? The kids have gotten totally off schedule during the holidays, and are staying up way too late. I desperately need an hour or so of wind-down time to myself after the little ones are in bed, so that means that I'm always up late too.
This was quite revelatory for me: I had never made a connection to my children's drifting nighttime schedule to my prayer life, but through this exercise I realized that things had gone off the rails in that department exactly when we started getting lax about when everyone went to bed. Even more interestingly, that same issue kept coming up in other areas of life: The examinations for Relationship with the Kids, Housekeeping, Health, and Work all revealed connections to this issue of everyone's nighttime schedule being in disarray.
And there I had a clear goal for the new year: Establish reasonable bedtimes for everyone in the house. It's simple, it's doable, and I expect that if we can see improvements in this one small area, they will radiate out toward many other areas of life.
I found a couple of other issues that, like the bedtime chaos, kept coming up over and over again during my New Year's life inventory, and have added them to my small list of resolutions. Unlike other years, I don't have fantasies that I'm going to recreate Eden at the Fulwiler house with my ambitious resolutions list. But I'm feeling more energized than I have in a while, knowing that I've identified a few small changes that will make a big difference.
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Brilliant, Jennifer! You’d have made a great analyst. Instead of trying to find a particular answer in the data, you stacked it up a few different ways, looked for correlations and trends, and Voila! out comes the answer—the data speaks to you. This is exactly how God speaks to us. No thundering highly amplified announcements (save at the Transfiguration) we depict in movies, but just lots of little tiny whispers in a lot of different circumstances, that when we stand back and let them talk to us, we get the message that we’ve been missing. Fantastic! A great revelation for all of us! Happy 2013!
I too agree with Rich, great analysis! This was very helpful for my sometimes scattered, wandering mind!!
I wrote a simple blog of where to start, it was one of my goals I accomplished this year. www.newlifespot.com
Happy blessings for the new year!
“Establish reasonable bedtimes for everyone in the house.”
Now there is an absolute gem of wisdom. Sleep deprivation is wrecking this country. (OK, just me for certain, but I like to project my problems onto everyone else.)
For me to establish a reasonable bedtime successfully, I’ll probably have to take a ball-peen hammer to my iPad.
Good column, Jenn.
God bless!
www.MerryCatholic.com
Great post,very inspiring, thank you!
What has worked for me is to have an established time that I begin my end-of-the-day wind down. When I stick to that, I find that I get drowsy and ready to fall asleep much sooner.
Example: At 9:00 I start my wind down, I tidy the kitchen and turn on the dishwasher, then I brush my teeth and get into bed for wind down time, leaving the lamp turned on. From that point on, I can spend time doing whatever I want up until 10:30: I can read, watch TV, get on my computer or do whatever I want as long as I stay put in the bed. Lights out is at 10:30, but I can still watch TV if I want (I set the TV sleep timer so it turns itself off in 30 minutes).
When I follow this pattern I usually fall asleep before 11:00. When I do not follow this pattern I usually fall asleep between 1:00 am and 2:00 am.
Your article could have been titled, “How to Focus on the Important” because that is what you have written. Great approach to identifying problems and creating a plan to solve them!
I literally said, “wow” while reading this!
Nice work!
Jennifer, your article hits home. I don’t know if you’re interested in pointers, but I cannot recommend highly enough FlyLady (www.flylady.net) for trying to get control of your house. She is a true blessing!
Jennifer, this is a great approach to establishing an achievable goal for the new year. I am going to use it, as well as share it on FB, as I know others will find it helpful too. (Praying for your healthy completion of your pregnancy, too!)
Incredible insight. I have often wondered why my life AFTER raising 6 children (as a working mother) seems more harried and hectic than when I had three in diapers and worked 40 hours a week as a high risk labor and delivery nurse.
Your column has opened my eyes. I am not nearly as organized now as I was for the previous 25 years. I now have the computer to distract me and muddle my focus. I don’t get enough sleep. I am still working full time. It seems I am always busy playing catch-up.
My New Year’s resolution: stay off of the Internet after 4pm.
Love, love, love this post (and it might just be because I’m having the exact same issue at my house). I like to call my list the “5 Hs”: Husband, Homeschooling, House, Health and Heaven. When my life seems super chaotic I take a look at those areas to see where I’ve gotten off track. Sometimes minor adjustment have far reaching benefits.
Also pregnant here as well and major fatigued these last few days, but luckily it just seems that I’ve been mostly successfully fighting off the cold my son got recently. But I feel for you! Just last night I was almost in tears at the dinner table I was so overcome with the yuks. I will be praying for some resolution for your issue and that you will be feeling better soon! Although, I have to note that your article is just as good as always. How do you do that when you feel so crummy? Ha ha! Good luck with your bedtimes!
Thank you for your candidness, Jen! We have the same problem in our household and getting to bed at a decent our is always a struggle for me..so much so it was part of my Lenten sacrifice last year (go to bed early!). And you are so right - the effects really do trickle down into so many other areas. Thanks for the motivation to set some truly attainable goals…and happy new year!
http://crinionclan.blogspot.com/2012/03/lent-process-of-discipline.html
Wow, Jennifer!
You have an approach that makes excellent sense. Even us old retirees (Dad of 5, Grandpa of 12 and G-Gpa of 3) can draw a lesson from your approach. May these changes also benefit your marriage.
TeaPot562
Good ideas! I’m doing something similar this year; I decided to use Seinfield’s productivity secret to help enforce standards that I have already been working on. Using it, you make a chart or calendar for every goal you’re working on. Every day that you keep up the goal—say, daily exercise—you mark an X on the chart. Having a full row of X’s is supposed to motivate you to keep it up. It sounded like just the thing for my excessively Type A personality :D
I will pray for your health and that of your baby.
Jennifer, thank you for sharing with such clarity on a universal problem. I can so relate, & I’m not pregnant, nor do I have 5 little ones in my care. Your writing exercise is excellent, & I will write mine, following your general example. Thank you!!! I am praying for your whole family, and especially for you. You have given so much. Please be exceptionally kind to yourself!
Thank you, Fulwieler. I think ill go to bed now, its 2:36am! :)
This is inspired writing. Just what I am needing given a ‘rubbish’ mood I woke up with on 1st Jan. It reminds me of Steven Covey but with the vital ingredient of prayer/God given it’s proper place- a weakness in his books. Your problems as you describe them (prayer in the morning!) are so universal I’m sure.
Thank you so much for doing this piece, especially in your circumstances, it’s heroic. It’s changed my mood and set me up, I hope, in Hope, for a good year! God Bless you, Joe and family.
This is great, Jen! Hope you didn’t stay up too late last night! Can I put on my doula hat and make a suggestion? Look into B12 deficiency. I had to take a super high liquid supplement when pregnant this past time and it changed my life. We need a ton when pregnant and the recommendations are not nearly high enough. It’s a vitamin that’s really hard to get in our diets. That and my green smoothies in the morning made a world of difference. Worth a shot…
Sympathies. I also had rotten pregnancies, and was really ill with the last. He is nearly five now, and I have almost gotten the house back to the level of chaos it was before. I think that may be why God hasn’t sent me any more. Sometimes you just have to ride out bad pregnancies, and know that it will end, and one day you will feel so much better. And who would think you could feel less tired with a new born.
Staying up late is a big problem for me and that really throws my non-existent schedule way off. I find that if I really try to get in bed by 10pm and set up everyone’s clothes, including mine the night before that really helps. I keep putting off doing a real schedule, a la “A Mother’s Rule of Life” even though I know it would help me. This year I really need to do it because I’m unhappy with myself. I’m also going to try to get Spiritual Direction going again. I had my pastor but I think I will try to find a new one. I got Dan Burke’s book Navigating the Interior Life, http://navigatingtheinteriorlife.com/ and will start looking for a new one. The one thing I need to do first is make prayer come first. Once I do that I will stop feeling guilty and get my relationship with God going again. I hope you are feeling better and “survive the day.” God Bless!
I too was really set to bypass any resolutions myself. Although I have a couple of small goals in my head, I figured, why set myself up for failure? But you’ve made me re-think that especially since I can 100% relate to kids getting to bed late/needed time afterwards to decompress/getting up way too late in the morning to have a proper devotional/prayer time. I have to rethink priorities and get to the root of that. If my aim is Him, I think some simple resolutions will come to mind. Thanks for making me think more about it.
Maybe if you change your language about what happens in the house, your thinking and response to it will be different. Joe is your husband. He doesn’t just “help around the house.” (Or does he also “babysit” his children?) You are partners in this endeavor, but your language doesn’t reflect that, which makes me wonder if you really believe that you are partners. That in itself may be having a detrimental effect on you.
and just for fun, the verification word here tonight is “bed98.”
Irish Pirate makes a point, but it’s a bit snarky. “Which makes me wonder if you really believe you are partners.” Really? That seems a bit harsh. Clearly you and Joe are awesome partners so I’m going to add to your list that you don’t take some comments too seriously. Hang tough, Mama! Andrea www.happilytickedoff.com
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