A New Spin on New Year’s Resolutions

The new year has arrived, and is already whizzing by at a startling rate. Now is the time every conversation, facebook update, and tweet resonates with the new years resolutions of friends and family. While at its core, the premise of resolutions are positive, the sad truth is that many things we resolve to do are goals too large to take on alone and often leave us feeling like failures.

An alternative idea popped up on my Facebook news feed around the 31st of December that truly inspired me: A memory jar. I affectionately refer to it as “remember-loutions”. The idea is to take a jar, decorate it in an aesthetically pleasing manner, and place it somewhere you’ll see it. Keep a little pad of paper and a pen next to it. When something good happens, specifically something you’re proud of or that makes you feel accomplished, record it on a piece of paper and pop it into the jar. In doing so, you’re creating a little collection of positive energy. At the end of 2015, you can open all the pieces of paper and remind yourself of all the things you accomplished over the last year. Here’s a little pic of the one I made. I think I’ll go out this weekend and find some materials that really speak to me, this is just a rough draft for now:

If you were trying to resolve to improve your diet, write down exact days or lengths of time that you accomplished healthy eating. Purchase a little cookbook with blank pages and jot down some ideas from Pinterest, friends, or creations of your own imagination.

Personal accomplishments I’ve managed thus far have focused on two of my year-long goals.

1.) Cook more for friends and family

2.) Nourish my inner artist

Working the evening shift at work exposes me to a large number of young people. As this is a rather physical job that can get messy, I find mostly young men are the ones who stick around. These guys have some great stories that remind me of my late teens and early 20’s. Most of them are genuinely good kids who are trying to find a balance between work and play in their adult lives. As such, they’ve come to the realization that food (specifically purchasing and preparing) is a “thing” that comes with living alone. After seeing and hearing too many occasions of these guys eating boxes of Triscuits or just having a cup of coffee for lunch, I’ve made it my missions to occasionally throw a few portions of homemade food their way.

On Monday, I made the crew some lasagna with sauteed zucchini and chicken sausage. Despite not being a mom, I have a lot of mothering tendencies, so everyone got their own individually portioned bit of lasagna

Pasta party!

Everyone seemed pretty pleased with their pasta, and it made me happy to know everyone was properly fed that day.

The second goal is more of a gentle reminder to myself. As much as I love food, it has helped to step away from it time to time and just throw some paint on paper. Here’s a little peak at this week’s painting. Even if they all turn out cartoony and silly, it makes me happy to do it.

I encourage everyone to make a memory jar and put happy reminders to yourself in it. If you’re having a bad day, pull a few out and read them. Put a few little good luck charms in the jar to help accumulate more positivity (crystals, colorful beads, marbles). These can be taken out and put in your pocket if you need a whole day’s worth of encouragement.

Make some beautiful memories.