Journal-Advocate (Sterling)

Readers offer their own resolution responses

- Contact Amy Dickinson via email, askamy@ amydickins­on.com.

DEAR READERS >> By this time of year, many of us have tried — and already discarded — our New Year’s resolution­s.

In the spirit of making, keeping, or perhaps restarting these resolution­s, I’m devoting this column to reader responses to a recent question from “Unresolved” about the challenge of maintainin­g resolution­s.

DEAR AMY >> The only resolution I truly kept was to discard one item every week, after downsizing from a home to a condo.

So easy! So liberating! It cured me of needing to hold on to “stuff.”

— Gloria, in Grand

Rapids, Michigan

DEAR AMY >> Why are we so stuck on January 1 as the day all resolution­s must begin?

It’s hard to get moving in the dead of winter. Instead, look at the spring equinox as your starting point for new resolution­s, and spend the winter months reflecting on old habits, slowly shedding the ones that don’t work for you anymore, and thinking of ways to improve your life once the snow melts.

Spring has always felt like the start of a new year to me, anyway.

— Alli

DEAR AMY >> Never make a New Year’s resolution. Wait until April 1, because then if you fail, you are only making a fool of yourself.

On April 1, 1980, I resolved to stop smoking cigarettes. I haven’t smoked one since.

The only resolution I ever made worked.

— No Cigs in Virginia

DEAR AMY >> I t is OK to make “fun” resolution­s, too!

One year I resolved to try a new kind of cheese every month.

I didn’t make it through 12 new cheeses, but thinking about the six or seven new ones I did try still makes me smile!

— A Friend

DEAR AMY >> I keep a whiteboard with the fitness goals I’d like to achieve that week. It’s satisfying to check them off, and seeing blank spaces motivates me.

DEAR AMY >> I think we are absolutely our own worst critics.

I know that negative reinforcem­ent produces the least long-term behavior change, while doing plenty of damage to our self-esteem, which is pretty demotivati­ng.

Positive reinforcem­ent, kindness to ourselves, and being our own cheerleade­r is really key.

That, along with living with enthusiasm

(fake it until it sticks), have helped to bring me to some of my most productive periods of self-improvemen­t.

— Sharing Helps

DEAR AMY >> After I exclaimed my distress at not being able to keep my own resolution­s my friend asked me, “Who is the boss of you?” Um, me? Yup!

I’ve learned that I am the boss of my personal goals and if I don’t honor myself by putting effort into the things that I want to accomplish, then who will?

— The Boss

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