One Down, Eleven to Go

New Year’s Day is not just the first day of the year, it’s my birthday, so it’s a great time to reflect on my life and my goals. But I don’t do “official” resolutions. Long term goals are one thing, but a year long committment to a new and better habit seems counterproductive to me. When I do make promises to myself, and I fall short, I do what I think most people do. I start over at a later date. Hitching my self improvement habits to the first of the year makes it too tempting to start over at the beginning of the next year – even when I give up on a habit in February.

This is why I love the idea of 12 in 12. It wasn’t my idea, and I’ve seen veriatios on the theme before, but when I read about it in early January I decided it was for me. It just makes more sense to me to shorten the cycle.

Before I get to my progress report for January, I have to confess. I broke the rules a bit – as I plan to do in February. I’ve been working on several habits over the last 14 months or so and I wanted to use the new year as a way to get my act together. I decided I would take those goals and wrap them up in routines I could do in January and February.

I promise to play by the rules starting in March.

January was about my morning routine. I like to get up at four a.m, read my Bible, catch up on my reading, get some writing done, and get to work. I’ve been following this routine “on and off” for a couple of years, but the problem is that when I get off the routine, I really get off track.

Keeping in the spirit of 12 in 12, I decided the goal for January was to finish my daily reading before 6a.m. I was able to do on all but three of the days in January. As expected, the rest of the routine pretty much fell in line.

I’ll fill you in on February’s mission next month. I’ll give you a hint – I had a very delicious BBG burger last night for dinner and chased it down with some peanut butter cups.

Try it for yourself in February, and follow along with other 12ers on Twitter.