New Days Resolutions

From all of us at Sliding Doors, Happy New Year!  We hope that your holidays were full of joy, love and fun.

So, new year’s resolutions…we’ve all made them at one time or another and for someone like me who is a big thinker and planner, I revel in sitting with my journal on New Year’s Day, looking at the year ahead and picking my goals and planning just how I will achieve them.  I also take some time to reflect on the goals of the past year and cheer for those I achieved and analyze where I fell short on those I didn’t.  This year it was particularly fun and poignant as I reflected on the establishment of SDSquared and just where I want it to go in the year ahead.

As I have mentioned in a previous post (and as evidenced by my New Year’s tradition), I am a planner.  This did not change with arrival of the chaos of parenthood; in fact, I admittedly struggled with just how impossible it is to stick to a plan for a day, a week, or sometimes even just the next 10 minutes when you have little people calling your name or sticking their little fingers underneath the bathroom door. 

And of course, the impossible became the unfathomable when we began tackling our daughter’s challenges.   All that wonderful planning I did – her schooling, her activities – forget about it!  I was just was happy when we got through the day with a torrent of tears. 

I would be lying if I said that I easily abandoned all of that; truly it felt like I was mourning the loss of something, of some kind of idealized image of what she could become.  I had to let go of it and truly rebaseline my hopes and expectations. Again, as I mentioned previously, I just wanted her to be happy and confident.

To accomplish this, when it comes to my child, I no longer set New Year’s Resolutions; I set New Days Resolutions.  We focus on the immediate goal of getting through the day and achieving minor successes – passing a test, working out an argument with a friend, asking for help despite her fear.  In that vein, this year we are adding a new tradition – we have a jar in the middle of our table and when we achieve those so-called minor victories we write them down and put them in.  That way when we feel like we haven’t achieved anything, we have that visual reminder of all that we have in fact accomplished.  These “small” victories are what lead to ultimately the larger ones but by breaking them down to these chewable pieces we help our children build that confidence and understand that a “thousand mile journey begins with a single step.”

So, please join us and set your New Day’s Resolutions!