My Post-Resolution Glow

I have done it. I have accomplished my New Year's Resolutions by the thirteenth day of the year by completing my two, as I like to call them, TOP goals. If you want to know how you too can have such a brag story of checking off your 2014 goals before the first half of January, you need a TOP goal. It's just as catchy as a SMART goal. Heard of a SMART goal? At work, they attach money or performance measures to SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely). There's nothing wrong with SMART goals, and at work, I am an advocate. A TOP goal is a Tiny, Open to adjustment, and Possible achievement with daily prizes attached, like a Starbucks drink, quality moment with a kid, quality moment without a kid, Facebook peek, or a boastful blog post. By starting the year with non-specific, difficult-to-measure TOP goals like, "I'll run on my street sometime" or "I'm going to write down kid quotes when I think about it", I can begin this year feeling truly accomplished.

To follow through on my first TOP goal, I squeezed my legs into my new Christmas stretchy pants one day and morphed into a runner. I ran all the way from the bend in the road at the top of the hill on our street, past three stop signs, past the church, past the bearded motorcyclist staring at my socks, (It's cold. Why would I wear little ankle socks that slip into my shoes when I have these nice, thick woolen ski socks that meet my stretchy Capri pants so perfectly on my mid-calf?), and all the way to the fire hydrant. I've run that route three times... three more times than I ever thought post-pregnancy possible in 2013. Way to go me. If I never run it again, I will look back on this year with pride.

Thanks to another themed journal full of the possibility of scrawling ideas penned on the first four pages, I have completed 68% of the prompts from January 1st through today with Jude-sayings. The key to achieving my second TOP goal was to buy a journal that I can lose in my purse. In four, two-inch lines on each little page, I can capture the gist of the incredibly humorous and genius quotes that are so much more noteworthy if you had heard the raspy slow words that came out of our thirty-pound person. Here is a sampling: "Look! Brother and Baby Poo are going down to find their Mommy and Daddy!" "Mama, I am growing up. I can do the Chicken Dance." "Daddy, are you buttering Mama up?" If you had been there, you might have snorted or spit out your Taco Soup. For me, the transition between Marketing Plans, budget strategy, and selling skills and on to Jude's ideas on poo and the Chicken Dance isn't always pronounced. One day, maybe Jude will pick up this January journal and appreciate his three-year old wit and my willingness to record it. If anything, I will display the book on a shelf as my personal trophy prize showcasing one good intention that actually survived the gauntlet of Lindsay's Family and Career Pinball Machine with its lights, traps, music and all.

Thanks to my TOP goal strategy, which I highly recommend, I can continue on for the next three hundred and fifty-two days of 2014 without Resolution Guilt. Happy New Year!