Change You Can Accomplish

Since today is all about hope and fresh starts, I thought I'd talk a bit about change. January is a great time for assessing what you want for yourself, where you are and where you want to go, and for setting goals and making resolutions -- I mean, what else is there to do when there's more snow every day? But here it is, the end of the month. How many people have already fallen off the wagon, so to speak?

According to a resolution specialist, here are some scary stats:
Forty to 45 percent of American adults make one or more resolutions each year. Only 75 percent make it past the first week. Seventy-one percent make it to week two. Past one month, the numbers drop fairly significantly to 64 percent. More than half, 46 percent, give up before they reach the six-month mark.

Are you going to get there? Or are you going to be a New Year's casualty? The difference between the two is in the process. Making positive change is part of a course of action in which we need more than resolve -- we need a real departure from the old behaviors that acted as roadblocks to change.

Getting organized (in the top 5 resolutions every year) isn't all about the type-A obsessive compulsive. It actually frees up more time for fun, since we spend less time searching for what we need and railing at our lack of control. A lot of organizing goals stem from a need to have more time and less stress and also from the knowledge that we are our own worst enemies. We throw our keys into the bottom of our purses, knowing that later when we need them, we will dig and curse and waste time. We wait till the last minute to prepare for a big meeting, then judge our performance harshly, filling ourselves with doubt and insecurity.

The question is: How do we break the cycle of missed opportunity and self-criticism?

Seeing the new life you envision set down in black and white can be empowering, but there is a vast gap between setting new objectives and bringing them to life. Goals can be a friend or foe, depending on how you approach them. If you set goals that are too vague, you won't know where to start. Make your goals specific as you can, and give yourself short-term and long-term deadlines to force the hand of progress.

First, right now, revisit your resolutions and take stock. Did you shoot too high? Hope for too much change without realizing how challenging it would be? Don't veer off course just yet. Revise your list, now that you're being more realistic. If your goals aren't reasonable or specific, you're not going to be successful no matter how hard you try. Do you want to have your whole house under control by spring break? Not going to happen, my friends. Unrealistic. But if you work consistently, focusing on short-term projects, you'll get there by this time next year. And in that time, you will have learned new behaviors that will keep you on track for the rest of your life. Organizing -- whether it's space, stuff or time -- is a series of learned behaviors that can be adopted and modified at any point. To get to your goal, try working in 10-minute to hourlong increments and feel good about what you accomplish in that time.

Second, consider your mind-set. Are you passively approaching the change you want to make or are you really going for it? Motivation is a huge piece of success. Part of instituting new behaviors is finding ways to keep from getting bored and frustrated. How bad do you want it? If you work to accomplish smaller goals, each milestone you reach will keep you reaching for more.

Third, perfect your strategy. Are you using processes that make sense for you? Getting organized is a lot like learning study habits when you're younger. If you try to use a system that isn't a good fit for you, success will be that much more out of your reach. Frustration usually ends badly, in giving up. A huge part of realizing success in organizing is seizing the right opportunity as it applies to your life. Once you find a particular process that works easily for you, apply it as often as you can and use those results to learn and modify as you go. The success will solidify your commitment. Focus on increasing your strengths rather than eliminating your weaknesses.

And the last part, and probably most important, is to track your progress. Keep a short record of what you've changed, when, how, and what process you've used to reach your goals. Keep it simple and create a schedule for recording what you've done. If you haven't made it as far as you'd like, be honest about that, too. If you're being lazy, no one will know but you. But you're also the only one who suffers for it.

So don't give up if you're on the cusp. Keep trying. The world is changing -- today, right now. How about you?

Love, LT