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Why kids find it hard to build and maintain habit-related resolutions

It's high time parents accept this

Dear children,

I have a confession to make. If there is one thing I don’t have a shred of belief in, it is the idea of ‘New Year resolutions’.

It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, I used to staunchly believe in the need to start a year with wilful decisions to introduce good habits and kick out the rotten ones. Year after year, I went through the drill religiously, sometimes even making mnemonic notes that I stuck into text books, only to see all my resolve dissolve like salt granules in water within a few weeks. I see many of you letting out a chuckle of acknowledgement. You have been there and done it too, and it feels good to know you are not alone in it, doesn’t it?

Let’s accept it. Habit and routine-related resolutions are hard to keep in the long run, which is why in time, I stopped taking oaths that sounded attractive but were not realistic in my scheme of things. But when the New Year came, I felt obliged to make some difference to the way I lived, bringing in at least an iota of change to the old self and discover a new version of me.

So, I gave the traditional resolutions a spin, and instead of setting tangible goals like eating less sweets or spending less time watching TV (there was no internet or social media then) or commit to strict time management, I set targets that would have an overall impact on me as a person. I didn’t know if it was practical, but I had set my mind on trying something new. This was many decades ago.

I remember sitting down one day towards the end of the year and listing out ten good qualities I wanted to acquire as a human being. That exercise led me to make a blueprint of a value system that I would follow for the rest of my life. Every year, I took up one quality from the list and made a pledge to abide by it consistently and make it an inherent part of my personality. It included everything I wanted people to remember me for – kindness, empathy, love, creativity, perseverance, confidence, honesty, gratitude and then some. I would take one or two from the list every year and make it my creed. It was like setting a theme for the year, like how we now have the year of sustainability or year of giving or year of the girl child.

One by one, I put a brick or two each year to build the person that I am today. It wasn’t easy to keep a constant tab on my behaviour, but with less distractions and a will to grow into a better person with each passing year, I strived as best as I could. I might not have succeeded entirely, but this much is certain – it moulded my character in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.

We are into February and the year is not very new, but it is still not late for you to consider drawing up your own list of core values and make a sincere effort to make them your personal qualities. Start with small things, like kindness. The world can never have enough of it. Make a promise to practise compassion this whole year. Then another, the next year and so on. It might sound like a long and hard journey, but remember, we are not making resolutions, we are finding re‘solutions’ that will reflect on us positively for a whole lifetime. Until next, keep growing; keep glowing.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com