I’m thinking big picture.

I’ve been thinking about resolutions. About which ones I’d like to make.

Or whether I want to make any at all.

I think I do.

But I want to change the way I think about them.

I’m not calling them resolutions.

Instead, I’m setting goals for myself this year.

I think when we make resolutions, there is often an all-or-nothing mentality attached to them.

You resolve to stop eating junk food. You make it a couple days and then… you fall off the wagon.

Three days into January, you have broken your New Year’s Resolution, you feel like a failure, and now you are in fuck it territory.

I don’t want to be there.

So I’m thinking bigger picture.

And I’m not thinking only about things that I can do.

I’m thinking about the person I want to be.

I want to become a better version of me. I want to keep growing. Always. (Unless we are talking pants size).

And what that means is that next January 1st, I want to look back and feel like I’ve grown as a mother. That I’ve become a better wife, a better daughter, a better businesswoman, a better coach, a better friend, a better athlete.

And I will have the same goals the following year.

Because I think our potential is kind of limitless. I don’t think there really is an endpoint in the potential department.

So yes, there are some specific things I would like to do. Some steps I’d like to take to move forward.

But rather than look at them as all-or-nothing, I’m changing my mindset.

Which brings me to my first goal.

1) Find the sweet spot.

I have lived most of my life in the extremes. I come by that largely by nature. I was born into a long line of addicts on both my mother’s and father’s side of the family.

So all or nothing comes naturally.

I eat none of the food or all of the food.

I organize my whole house, or none of it.

I work out for two hours or zero hours.

I want to find the sweet spot in between.

I want to operate more in the gray and less in the black and white.

I have made some progress in this department in the past few years.

But I have a long way to go.

And this isn’t to say that I won’t still give my all.

But my feeling that if it’s not perfect it’s not worth doing is stopping me from realizing my potential.

I don’t have to win everything.

I don’t have to set a record.

I can do things just for the experience.

No matter what place you cross the finish line in, you still learn something along the way.

Slow progress is still progress.

2). Treat my kids like their teacher would.

I can’t count how many times I’ve said to my kids, “Would you do that to your teacher?”

But the truth of the matter is, I do things to my kids that their teachers wouldn’t ever do.

I know, their teachers aren’t with them all the time, and all kids behave differently at school than they do at home.

But there are mornings when my kids come downstairs and I do not smile at them.

I’m annoyed that they are waking up earlier than I’d like because I still have a couple things I need to get done or because I got up later than I had planned.

But I can’t remember a time in my teaching days that a kid walked into the classroom first thing in the morning and all I did was sigh, or roll my eyes or tell him to go back out into the hallway.

So I really want to smile at my kids first thing every morning.

If I don’t? If tomorrow morning I go right into old habits?

Well, refer to resolution Number 1.

Slow progress is still progress. And so is a growing awareness.

3). Be uncomfortable. Every day.

This is the big one.

Because it applies to all the aspects of myself that I’d like to keep improving upon.

Growth cannot occur without discomfort, whether it’s physical or emotional or social.

I won’t become a better athlete by jogging the same 3 miles at the same pace four days a week.

I need to push myself to where I am physically uncomfortable to  improve.

There are things I do in my marriage that are not helping my relationship.

I do them because they are comfortable. It’s what I’ve always done.

The only way to change that is to do something new. Which is uncomfortable because it doesn’t come easily.

If I want to become a better businesswoman, I need to practice the things I’m not good at.

It’s easy to stay away from those things because they make me nervous.

But that doesn’t grow a business.

There are so many opportunities for me to move outside my comfort zone each day.

This one should be easy to stick to.

But if I don’t?

If I have a day where I don’t get my ass off the couch, where I’m a total bitch to my husband, and I don’t crack one smile at my kids?

Well, then I refer back to resolution Number 1.

And I remember 2014.

I made a lot of mistakes in 2014.

But I also built up my businesses, discovered hot yoga, was on the Dr. Oz show three times, ran two marathons in two weeks. found a great therapist, watched my kids excel in multiple areas, taught dozens of kids how to swim, spent a perfect weekend with my husband, and made some amazing new friends.

I didn’t do everything perfectly.

But I’m a better version of the person I was in 2013.

And a year from now, I bet I’ll say the exact same thing.