Before the last the last chords of Auld Lang Syne melt in the cold January air, most of us are already thinking about resolutions. Truth be told, many of us are thinking about these resolutions by about mid-December when the holiday parties begin to take their toll on our waistlines. Just about every year, I plan to be more patient with my kids, lose those few pesky pounds that refuse to budge, organize the entire house, etc., etc. etc.
I bet these sound a lot like your resolutions. Well, it isn’t two weeks into January yet and I’ve had a few moments of lost patience with the kids and had a nibble here and there of the leftover holiday treats.
What about baby steps? Instead of setting the resolution or goal of losing xx pounds by Summer, maybe it should be one of these:
- Take the stairs at work, or park further away from the entrance to stores and restaurants.
- Cook at home more often (this is sure to cut calories).
- Don’t just send the kids outside to play, go with them and play with them.
Baby steps…
Let’s face it, the whole house isn’t going to be clean all the time. But we can take baby steps here too.
- Clean one room every day for a week. When the week is over, start again. Pretty soon, they’ll be so manageable that you won’t feel so overwhelmed by mess and clutter.
- If something is trash, throw it away. Despite our increasingly paperless society, paper suffocates my house on a daily basis—reminders about the next event at school, worksheets from the day, homework to be completed, mail, insurance reminders, magazines with pre-holiday, post-holiday, actual holiday and even made up holiday sales—it’s endless!! Throw it away! Trust me, you do not need to keep the story that Susie wrote in second grade about monkeys. If you keep it, I can almost guarantee that Susie will be throwing it out one day. Remember the moments, but don’t hang on the stuff!
Baby steps…
I’m starting to think that that Baby New Year is trying to tell us something… Yes, the new year is about starting over, a rebirth if you will, but that can only happen one baby step at a time.
My coworkers and I received a very special gift this holiday. It was a daily calendar of quotes and affirmations. The quote for January 5 reads, “How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.” Credit to none other than Coco Chanel for that one. How true is that, though? Are our resolutions about being something, or someone? Brings me back to the line of that famous New Year’s song referenced above, “We’ll take a cup of kindness yet…”
That sounds like the simplest and easiest of all resolutions—kindness. What if we all resolved to sprinkle kindness like confetti. What a wonderful world that would be!! Remember that everyone could use a little more kindness, no matter what.
One of our goals here at Andreas is to make your day better. Kindness can make Anyone’s day Everyday with one small act of kindness.
Our ultimate resolution—Be Kind Everyday!
