Hello Everyone!

We are back! Debbie successfully finished her Master's Degree. Kelsie had her sweet little baby girl, and Haylie moved her family to a new state. We have been crazy busy, but we are back. We plan to post nearly every day, so come and visit!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

If you are like most people, you have a handful of New Year's Resolutions that you are working on. I know that I have my share of them. This year, I have been reading a lot about, "making those resolutions stick," and I have learned a lot of interesting things that I want to share with you:

1. Write it down
Make a list of your resolutions and keep it somewhere where you can look at it often. If you are still trying to decide what resolutions to choose, Tsh,at Simple Mom,has some great questions to guide you...click here to go to her post.)

2. Break the resolution down into small pieces.
This idea was one of those ahhh experiences for me--it just made so much sense. There is another great post at Simple Mom that tells you how to accomplish this. (If you do not read the blog at simplemom.net, I would highly recommend it--they are amazing!) Here is a little bit of the post: "Kaizen is a Japanese word that means very small, continuous change. It’s little drips of water that fill a bucket over a long period of time, not a firehose in a few minutes." (Click here to read the entire post.) She explains how kaizen works, using the goal of waking up one hour earlier each day. She advocates setting the clock 2 minutes earlier each day. So...on the first night,if you usually get up at 7 a.m., you would set the alarm for 6:58 a.m. The next night, you would set your alarm for 6:56 a.m. You continue this process for thirty days,and ta da! you are getting up an hour earlier. Isn't that easy?
I put this into practice with exercising. It seems like I do really well in this area for a while, and then I go for a long time without a steady exercise routine. So, for the first week, I decided to exercise two times during the week. This week, the goal is three times, and eventually I will go at least five times a week. It seems so doable, and it gives me days to mess up at first, and still make my goal as I change my habits!

3. Write down your mini-goals.
I made this little book to keep track of my steps toward my resolutions.

The composition book has 100 pages, so I dedicated two pages to each week. I wrote the dates on the top of the page, and then all of my mini goals for the week, ie. exercising three times this week, and reading my scriptures at least three nights before going to sleep, etc. It has really helped me to record my little steps and work on successfully accomplishing my goals.

3. Tell yourself that you are not going for "Perfection," but for "Improvement."
This helps a ton if you are a little bit of a perfectionist like me! I choose not to focus on perfection, but instead on improving! I can keep going if I believe that the goal is improving--this leaves wiggle room when life gets in the way of the best laid plans. I do not have to be perfect in completing goals, I just have to be doing better each week.
One of my favorite quotes is by Joseph Smith. He said, "Direction is infinitely more important than speed." I love this thought!

Let's all head the right direction and improve ourselves day by day!
Debbie