The Truth Hurts

When I was at the ranch on Friday, Janine was making fortune cookies to take to her church's New Year's Eve party. Instead of fortunes, Janine filled her cookies with resolutions. She gave me one. It was fantastic. (The cookie was good too.)

Inside my cookie was the resolution, "I will procrastinate."

Others included

"I will cancel my gym membership due to lack of motivation"
"I will gain five pounds by next year"
"I will be late to special events"
"I will get angry and yell at other drivers"
"I will not organize my files"
"I will stress about things I can't change"
"I will forget birthdays of friends and family"
"I will overeat on holidays."

"I made them as a joke," said Janine, "because no one ever keeps resolutions."

I believe that making the standard New Year's resolutions only sets us up to fail. Somewhere inside, we know we won't complete the tasks we set for ourselves. And knowing we won't succeed, we don't think hard enough about what resolutions we should make.

If you are honest with yourself, you already know what your true goals should be this year.

Many times when we argue with a friend or parent or significant other, we are given a clue about what we need to work on, especially if they say something that makes us really angry.

A simple comment about losing your keys or not listening or being controlling...those comments can only make us angry if there is truth to them.

If someone accused me of being greedy or impatient, it wouldn't bother me. I know in my heart I am neither greedy nor am I impatient. Those might be issues other people struggle with, but they aren't mine.

But when someone tells me that I am disorganized or I procrastinate or I don't spend enough time with my kids, or **drum roll** that I don't follow through with everything I say.... Man, those things hit home. And they hurt. Bad.

I am horribly guilty of not following through with things that I say. It's never intentional. I wake up feeling great and I tell my husband that we should watch a movie that evening once the kids are asleep. But then after a long day at the ranch, by the time the kids are down, the only thing I want to do is sleep. That movie I mentioned earlier? Let's do it another time, okay honey?

Or I tell the boys I'll be home at lunchtime to make cookies. Then the mule breaks or unloading feed takes longer than expected or I get caught up simply playing with my own horses, and lunchtime comes and goes. I arrive at the house in the evening to an innocent son who says, "You were just kidding, right mom? You were just kidding that you were going to be home at lunch."

That's enough to make me want to put my head in the oven. But then when Allen calls me out on it, I get mad. And defensive. And all because what he's saying is true.

I think we all have something we know to be true about ourselves, something we don't want to admit, even to ourselves.

Those are the things we should resolve to overcome this year.

Personally, even though I don't like "New Year's Resolutions," I have made a resolution to always do what I say I'm going to do.

I think the reason I dislike making New Year's resolutions is that when we don't reach our goals--we smoke that cigarette or eat that donut or show up late for an appointment or forget a birthday--we tend to give up. We quit. Our resolutions are broken. It's over.

But it shouldn't be over.

Instead, we should be like Weebles. As soon as we find our goals knocked down, we should bounce back. We should live every day like New Year's Day (minus the hangover).

Every day is a new start. Every day is a new chance. Every day is a new opportunity to succeed.

Better yet, every second of every minute of every hour of every day is a new chance to start over.

Failure should never wipe out a resolution. It should simply make it stronger.

So as the first day of the New Year comes to a close, I challenge you to break one of your resolutions. Break it, and realize that by breaking it, you haven't really broken it at all. Break it, and come away with more resolve than you had before.

Make this a year of resolutions that can never be broken.

Happy New Year, everyone! It is my sincere wish that you are able to live fully during every moment of this next, wonderful year.

Welcome, 2011.