Hate New Years Resolutions

I always try to not set specific New Years Resolutions. I've heard people say that if you don't set a goal then you won't accomplish anything, and I can understand where that sentiment is coming from. But if I start out the year saying "This Year I will..." (& it will always be something I haven't been doing yet because otherwise why would I need the goal) then when I mess up or forget, I feel like I have failed for this year & stop trying. This is an awful way to start new habits!
The only goal I stared for this year was that I wanted to take a picture a week for the photo challenge I joined. As you know I forgot to post my photo 2 weeks ago, well this week I completely forgot to take the photo! Last year when I tried to join a different photo challenge & forgot to take a photo, I didn't see the point in continuing. I had messed up, I had not taken a photo a week for 2011, so I stopped. Well if I never build a habit of taking a photo a week then I will never actually complete this challenge, no matter how many years I try. Therefore, I am going to continue. This weeks photo theme is Blue, this week I am going to take a picture of something blue & post it! Then the week after that I'll post, and the week after that...and if I forget again then I will pick it up the next week. This year I will build the habit so that next year I can actually post a photo every week!
Another habit I am going to build is healthy eating habits. Based on The South Beach Diets way of thinking I am going to start eating healthier. If I mess up & eat something very unhealthy then the next day I will eat healthy. In the past when I have started trying to eat healthy as soon as I ate one thing that I knew was bad for me I said I had failed, & therefore could start eating lots of unhealthy things since that one unhealthy food had obviously automatically destroyed my diet. This is not a healthy way of thinking & it is definitely not how The South Beach Diet teaches you to think. The purpose of The South Beach Diet is to build a healthy eating lifestyle. I will never build that lifestyle if I don't make it a habit, and I will never make it a habit if I don't pick myself back up after I have fallen.
I also want to build a habit of working out. In May I am going to Disney World! But if I go in the shape I am in I will die :( That would be a sad trip. I want to start working out so I can really enjoy our trip! I had begun working out and did it five days in a row, which for me was quite an accomplishment! Then I missed one day, and never picked it back up again :( That's really sad that I let myself out of things so easily. Reading back over this I see how bad it looks, but I'm thinking I'm probably not the only one. And that is why I wanted to share my failures with you, so I could encourage you to build habits. And so I could ask for your encouragement while I am building habits. Instead of Resolutions for 2012, lets build habits for our life! What habits are you going to build?