Sunday, January 4, 2009

For Just One Week


If you haven't noticed, I'm a pretty fickle person. My moods, commitments, and ideas are just as random (probably more so) than my ice cream flavors. Another thing about me that you might not know is that I really like liking myself. I do. I like having a high self esteem and try my best to feel good about myself all the time. This creates a problem, though, because my high self esteem doesn't like feeling like a failure everytime I need to change (ok, it's more like give up) a new goal. So I've been wracking my brain trying to come up with a New Year's resoltion idea that will help me improve myself and get things done but without the inevitable feeling-like-a-total-looser when I need to change things up again.

Whenever someone asks me how they can improve their choice making skills I always say, "It's all about your priorities. Get your prioroties figured out and then make the decision that best fits your top priority." In trying to apply that thinking to my life I found it to have one big flaw. Sometimes your top priority needs other lesser priororities to be met in order to survive. Have I confused you yet? Here is an example: My first priority is my family. This suggests that every choice I make should be for my family. I've done this before and I almost lost myself, which in turn started to hurt my ability to care for my family. I need to occasionally put myself as a top priority in order to keep myself healthy and sane enough to take care of others.

(I have a really hard time typing priority correctly for some reason. Try typing it 3 times fast.)

This is what I've come up with, then, and I thought I'd do this Mr. Linky style in case any of you want to join me in my random, flip-flopping ways: I figure that I've always been able to succeed at any new goal for at least a week. If I want to focus on painting then well dressed and educated kids can surely wait for one week. Or if I wanted to have a clean house for one whole week I think I could push through and make it happen before my sanity (or body) totally gave out on me. One week can be seven days or just Monday through Friday (I like my weekends to be free of responsibility).

So may I present to you the only goal I've made for this New Year, to keep up with this one new idea: FOR JUST ONE WEEK.

To start it off I resolve, FOR JUST ONE WEEK, to have dinner on my table every night before 7:30pm and to not have any laundry sitting on my couch. I have high hopes that these two actions will lead to wonderful things and will let you know how it all turns out next Saturday (I'm hoping to make this a regular Saturday post).

What will you do? Write a post about your weekly goals and share them here. Please make sure to link to your individual post and not just your regular blog url. Thanks!

For Just One Week

1. Tricia
2. Samantha
3. Anna
4. Karen

Powered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.

19 comments:

Stephanie said...

Is it okay, if I half participate. I made up a whole slew of my own goals, but there is room in there for a weekly project. I'll come report on it here at your blog, but I probably won't post about it every week. Is that allowed? :)

This week: Christmas all put away and closets cleaned out. Wish me luck.

Ice Cream said...

Steph,
participate in anyway that works for you. Obviously I'm not a stickler for doing things by the rules. =)

Richelle said...

Sounds like a good way to go. A friend of mine (who is due 4 weeks after me with her 4th) said her New Year's resolution is just to survive. :) I think that is about what I feel like right now. My goal this week is to have a baby! :) Not that I have much control, but hopefully it will be here before next week. The beginning of next week for sure. After that we will definitely be in survival mode for a while. Give me a few weeks and I will join your One Week goal meme.

Ice Cream said...

Richelle,
I completely understand. If it hasn't been apparent by my lack of blogging I've pretty much been in survival mode since November of 2007. =)

Michal said...

I'm in, but I don't have time right at the moment to blog about it. My goal for this week is that I will be out of bed by 6:00 am Monday thru Thursday and by 7:00 am on Friday. I have really been bad lately about not crawling out of bed until I absolutely have to, which doesn't lead to the day running smoothly.:)

Packer Family said...

I'm in but I don't know how long I'll last:) I'm pathetic:) I'd much rather do a craft or play with the boys then clean my kitchen:(

Anonymous said...

A wonderous idea and I am so there.
priority priority priority. /ha and one handed too

Anonymous said...

the #3 anna was incorrectly typed. sorry

Anonymous said...

That is such a great idea!

Tricia said...

ok. you requested I post my menu to help keep you on track, please keep in mind that umm.. well. i am a mother of six and easy is my friend with the exception of tonight which is birthday dinner (two kids 10 years and 3 minutes apart..NOW thats talent)

Sunday --Homemade Pizza
Monday--Fried Chicken,curly fries, biscuits and corn
Tuesday--Meatloaf, buttered noodles, green peas
Wednesday--Grilled cheese and soup (chuck works....so its just easier)
Thursday-- Cookbook night--main ingredient is pork.. we will figure out the sides when we do the cookbook look through weds. (one of my new years resolutions is once a week make something new
Friday-- messy lasagna, salad skewers and garlic toast
Saturday is C.O.R.N. (clean our refridgerator night)

An Ordinary Mom said...

What a nifty idea, Liz! You are always so brilliant ... and I love the button/banner for this carnival. Did you design it yourself?

I would love to participate, but I will be sporadic ... having an infant in the home and a certain red headed toddler make life that way :) !!

For this week I will finish my re-entry process. Recovering from a trip (getting the shopping done, catching up on paper work, paying bills, etc.) is always such a headache.

Packer Family said...

I just wanted to let you know that my MIL sells her patterns on Etsy and the stockings are on there http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6330095 Just thought I would let you know in case you want to get an early start for next year:)

CC said...

You rock! I only have 2 kids and I can't do that for 2 days in a row!!

I'm going to do this pushup thing for one week. There. I said it.

Lara said...

I'm trying to have my desk (coffee table) cleaned off before I go to bed every night. And the family is working on (meaning I'm forcing them) keeping the entryway floor clean at all times.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I am using your last year's idea of doing one thing only from each category daily (spiritual, physical, family) and find it so easy to keep my goals--perhaps doping *that* one week at a time will be even better! :)

A mother heart said...

This is great. I have about a thousand goals that I want to accomplish and I get pretty fickle and flip-flopish trying to nail down one to work on at any given time. So I'll probably be joining in here often. Then I can work a little at a time on one specific goal, rather than looking at everything I want to do and drowning in frustration at not accomplishing it all. Sometimes it's a downer being perfectionist. :/

Rebecca Blevins said...

I shall do it too! I've been kinda trying to do this lately, and I'm excited about it!

Melanie Dickens said...

Okay, I absolutely love this idea. I just finished a post about how I have to find a way to change some of the things I want to about my life without losing myself. This is such a great idea, I am in. Going to create me some goals now. Have to figure out my priorities and start working on them.

SuzQuez said...

After 22 years of preschoolers, it was mostly, "Try to maintain the status quo," and I'd be really excited if I could do kids, food and laundry. It was too bad others in my life didn't think that I was doing fantastic work!

Other than that it's, "Follow the prophets."

Maybe I do good to do something I'd like to get done for ONE day.

You're great.