My family and I are on our annual post Christmas, pre new year road trip from North Dakota back home to Colorado. These ten hours in the car always lend themselves to conversations about resolutions, goals, hopes and dreams for the upcoming year. Some years we write them down as we talk and drive. We always have the best of intentions to make these resolutions a reality. But like most people, we often don’t get started or things fizzle out pretty quickly after life inevitably gets hectic.
What I have found to be so much more effective than new years’ resolutions is the concept of implementing habits. Habits can be something new I want to do every day or something I want to stop doing. There are two things that have really helped me to successfully implement new habits. First is doing it in community… alongside my mom, sisters and/or friends who are trying to create the same positive changes. Being able to check in with each other, talk about what’s hard and what helps is so encouraging and helps to keep me on track. The second thing is writing them down. I have a daily journal with a little check sheet that I made (with a ruler and a pencil) where I keep track of my habits. It’s a daily accountability I have with myself. I am that person that loves a list, and I love checking things off my list even more. Daily accountability with myself and my notebook is huge!
January Habit
My sisters and I know first hand the power of implementing habits in community, and we are excited to bring this to Like A Sister! We’ve decided to choose one habit a month in 2020 to implement together, and we would love to have you join us!
The habit we chose for January is to start a gratitude practice. Did you know that expressing gratitude can increase your well being and regulate your stress? In other words, it’s a mental health hack and it’s super simple! Just write down 5 things every day that you are thankful for. I typically do my gratitude practice in the morning, but I know some people like to do it right before they go to bed. You can use a notebook, a journal, or we’ve created a free printable that you can download and print for the month of January. We’ve also created a daily habit tracker for our community to use because the physical action of checking something off and seeing visual progress is so critical to successfully implementing new habits. Both these free printable can be found below.
Let’s be grateful together, and see how it changes our perspectives, our attitudes and maybe even our hearts! Please feel free to comment if you’d like to join our gratitude challenge in January. We’d also love to know if there are any habits you’d like to see us tackle together in 2020!
