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What happens when we replace 'resolution' with 'practice'?
Happy new year! I hope you have been able to take advantage of some well-earned relaxation over the Christmas holiday period, and that there has been the opportunity for some quality time with friends and family, too.
It's not the first time that I've written a blog concerning new year resolutions, and the start of a new year (whether that be a new academic or calendar year) being an opportunity to reflect on the past dozen months whilst planning forward for the next twelve.
However, I wonder if I'm alone in feeling that the start of 2022 is a little different? We've been here before in wishing for a better year to come (you remember January 2021, I’m sure) and in being disappointed that the restrictions and significant waves of the pandemic continued, disrupting the world right from the start of last year.
I've heard people jokingly refer to 2022 as "2020 again" - let's hope it isn't! Yet, perhaps the art of the new year resolution is due a makeover, not least owing to what we experienced last year.
There are certain elements of our daily lives that are, unfortunately, still beyond our control. However, even in more usual times, before the pandemic, how many people had honestly ditched their new year's resolutions by February?
- How many diet and exercise regimes fall at the first, second or third hurdle?
- How many new hobbies are barely started before they shudder to a halt?
- How many books gather dust, unopened?
- How many bad habits re-emerge after a shorter-than-planned break?
It takes time (I read that it's about 66 days) to establish any habit and embed it in our lives. I guess it's a similar kind of timeframe to break an undesirable one...
That kind of sustained effort is inevitably challenging, let alone during these disrupted, beyond-our-control, times. So this year, I've been interested to see a reframing of the new year's resolution - what happens when we replace 'resolution' with 'practice'? What do we get?
- I'm going to practise healthy eating.
- I'm going to practise running, or cycling, or football.
- I'm going to practise reading and spelling.
- I'm going to practise completing my homework within a day of it being set.
- I'm going to practise being tidy, or kind, or helpful.
- I'm going to practise solving equations, or playing the piano, or painting with watercolours...
The list is endless and, of course, very personal. However, I think the reframing is extremely useful. No longer are we looking at every single day from 1st January onwards being rated as a success or a failure - and let's face it, no-one likes the feeling of the latter (that's probably why we give up, demoralised).
Instead, we commit to practising - and we all know that practice is not a straight-line graph, or an even, steady, path. No, instead some days go better than others, on some days it's harder to get motivated than others (anyone fancy a run in a hailstorm?), and some days are just amazing.
If it works in sport, music, dance, maths... let's apply practice to our daily lives, too. Next December, we will then reflect on what we practised for 12 months, not every single bump in the road.
Good luck - what will you be practising?
