Real Talk: Resolution Wagon

By Jenny Lynne Stroup, Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at VVSD

www.vvsd.net/cohenclinicsandiego

Jumping on the Resolution Wagon

Dear reader,

The holidays are upon us and if you’re like me your new journal and your new pen are already poised and in position to postulate a perfected new prototype of yourself (at least on paper) all before the clock strikes midnight on December 31st. Though we all may pretend that we aren’t turning into pumpkins (not because of an end to a spell, but most likely because of Grandma’s homemade stuffing and Aunt Julia’s apple crumble pie), the truth is rather humblingly predictable.

I’ve been every version of a new version of myself on January 1st. I’ve been the health enthusiast, the fad diet nutritionist, the kick the habit/build the habit optimist, the better wife/better life, never-to-yell-again mom and many other shiny new things I have dreamt up for my personality and personal growth.

I jump on that bandwagon of the New Year resolutions, and I jump hard.

If I’m honest, none of my well-meaning resolutions have amounted to much—at least not in the ways I expected.

Like most well-meaning humans, I start out strong, hit a few road blocks, craft a few well-worded justifications, and fall off the wagon by March (at the latest) with a thud.

One may ask, why then would I repeat this insanity every single New Year’s Eve year upon year?

It isn’t so that I’ll finally lose the weight. Or lose the attitude. Or finally become the kind of writer who finishes more than a neat 1200-word column a month. It isn’t just because I’m an optimist and an idealist and that I truly believe in Disney Happily Ever After Endings (even if my life has teetered more often towards a fairy tale by Grimm). It is because if there is one thing I have learned in my life so far it is that we continue in the direction in which we mean to go. What we prioritize gets our attention. And what we neglect to remember, we neglect to do.

So, even if I’m yet to achieve all my resolutions, I am confident that my overall trajectory (albeit a bit bumpy at times on the graph), is trending towards the things I want it to.

Without resolutions, I’m afraid my life would become a life of only reactions. My priorities would be dictated by the furniture my dog chews, the messes my teenagers leave in the family room, and the never-ending (and I mean never-ending) piles of dishes and laundry a family provides for me to “manage.” There is a reason “no more yelling” makes the resolutions list most years!

If I didn’t take time to remember my own personal dreams, desires, and priorities, they wouldn’t stand a chance in this year or the next. Or even the year after that. To keep my own dreams and priorities on a steady climb that reflects growth, I at the very least need to take the time to remember them, to write them down, and to set the intention of making progress.

Though my goals may be Olympic-like in December, and look unrecognizable by March, they are still there. They are still remembered. They are written down. They are tucked inside my heart to keep coming back to once my perfectionism and pride settle down.

So, before you push away your pen too early this year, before you wonder if making those resolutions are simply a gimmick or a waste of time, I’d like to invite you to reframe the process for yourself. Instead of dreaming up new realities, take the time to acknowledge and remember long-standing hopes and dreams. Review how in the last year, after your recovered from the wind being knocked out of you last time you fell off the resolution wagon, you actually DID create a new habit, or achieved a new goal, or half a goal, or one step of a goal. And none of that could have happened if you hadn’t had a resolution to begin with.

And this year, instead of beating yourself up for the inevitable fall from the resolution wagon, anticipate it with this new promise to yourself: to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go about the process of moving forward at whatever pace that ends up being for you. And unapologetically pull out your pen again next December—and record what a different place you are starting from after all.

Jenny Lynne Stroup serves as the Outreach Coordinator for the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Veterans Village of San Diego.

www.vvsd.net/cohenclinicsandiego

The Cohen Clinic at VVSD is one of 19 mental health clinics nationwide under nonprofit Cohen Veterans Network (CVN) which focuses on providing targeted treatments for a variety of mental health challenges facing post-9/11 veterans and military families, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, transition challenges, and more.