Resolution-Fail

I had high hopes in January.

I was going to exercise four times a week, and my husband and I even made a little line graph and taped it to the wall right above the scale. It was going to be a steadily downward line, of course, with little dots and the connecting lines that were going to take us collectively 20 pounds lower on that vertical axis.

I color-coded a homeschooling schedule chart and taped it up in the kitchen. I had the appropriate almost-fun flashcard activities mixed in with the everyone-is-crying-now-grammar worksheets. And we were going to start at 8:30 sharp, with 10 minute breaks where I would play intentionally, while finishing cheerily at 2:30 after an hour of reading aloud — with hot tea and crumpets every Friday. {Okay, not the crumpets part– I do have some amount of realism in me.}

That fist week of January found my finger wagging at the kids as I laid out a color-coordinated chores chart, too, which I promptly stuck on the fridge. The chores rotated and were fair according to the kids ages, with even the four-year-old doing a little work every day with the feeding of the fish and the watering of the flowers.

I was going to get up at 5:30 every morning to pray and read. I set out to memorize the Sermon on the Mount and have the kids learn the beatitudes. I started a book which we’ve drug around the world in suitcases that everyone says is such a spiritual classic.

It was allll a glorious plan, laid out in new markers and swirly arrows, in blinking lights on the alarm clock, in neatly arranged art supplies and file folders. Creative, organized, diligent.

And now it’s the end of month two of 2012, and already our whole household has wriggled back into a mild form of chaos.  We start homeschooling according to how many cups of coffee I need in the morning, and the weight chart began gathering dust when it’s dots refused to form any line but a plateau {Okay, a slight uphill curve. Maybe, just a bit}. Chores are whatever I say they are, whenever I say to do them, and are applied to whomever happens to be standing in closest proximity.

To say that I’ve fallen off the wagon of my New Year’s Resolutions is a kind statement, since I suppose being on the wagon is logically a prerequisite to falling off of it.

And, so, here we sit– the month of February and all of my new goals are all just about over.

And I’ve done this before. I know how this tape plays out– I have a great idea, I attack it with gusto {and apparently colored markers}, I make big announcements, and I begin implementation.

And then. Well, then I get tired. And distracted. And bored. And forgetful.

And whatever pattern I was trying to break with my New Year’s Resolution suddenly becomes even more more ingrained, and I’m sitting around at the end of month two trying to remember what the colors on the chart were supposed to stand for in the first place.

Resolution-Fail, I guess you could call it.

But, here’s the thing. Sometimes New Year’s Resolutions shouldn’t have been made in the first place.  Sometimes what you thought you wanted to change you really didn’t need to. And other times, your circumstances shift and, goodness gracious, you need that third cup of coffee in the morning and that extra 30 minutes of sleep.  Sometimes, your idealism of January just needs a kick in the gut of reality from February.

But, other times, other times, your Resolution-Fail is this valid reminder of a pattern of living, of interacting, that needs attention, needs changing. Sometimes there is a hurtful pattern that digs a deeper rut with each year that goes by, and rut-removal is gritty, unglamorous inner-work that demands patience and perseverance– perhaps two qualities that didn’t even make the resolution chart in the first place.

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Experiencing any Resolution-Fail yourself?  Hate New Year’s Resolutions? What are two simple things you’d like to change about yourself/your life– right now in March?