New Year Resolutions and Daily Routine

Want your resolutions for 2011 to become more than broken promises to yourself?

I sure do.

I want to ACTUALLY write more, with less constraint.  I want to ACTUALLY kick a few bad habits, exercise more, and eat more nutritional foods.

So what's the secret to keeping your new year resolutions, if there is one?

Routine.

Yep, that's what everything I've been reading lately suggests we do, turn resolutions into habits.  And that means sticking to them every day for at least 30 days to make them stick. 

Old habits die hard and new ones are hard to birth.

Translation:

In order to make your new year resolutions stick, you have to make them an integral part of your life.

Be realistic, but whatever you decide to do, do it every day.  In small steps.

• New diet?  One day at a time, one meal at a time, one bite at a time.
• Writing?  Decide what you're going to write and when.  Then do it.  Every day. (Preferably at the same time, in the same place.)  No exceptions.
• Exercise:  Pick an exercise.  Pick a spot.  Pick a time.  Then do it.  Every day!

Need I go on? 

Routine.  Routine.  Routine.

You can do it!

I can do it!

We can do it!

Monday, I'll share my BIG writing ambitions for 2011.  I should be an authority by then.  I'll have starting making them part of my life for two full days by then.

Happy New Year, and good luck with integrating all those new habits into your life!