Sticking to New Year’s Resolutions

Note:  this week’s post is by guest blogger, Kelsey Peterson.  Kelsey was the student that inspired the creation of the Edge Foundation.  You can find other tips and ideas about how to be successful in college with ADHD with our Free Guide:  College Success and ADHD.

Key Ideas Summary for the ADHD Quick Read:

• Break each goal down so they aren’t large and scary
• Get a game plan
• Use a training schedule
• Set weekly and halfway checkpoints
• Be disciplined
• Develop new habits
• No excuses – just do it!
• Get help from your coach

Starting 2011 I was thinking about the things I want to accomplish this year. I don’t want to call them resolutions because, to me that has to connotation of failing.

Every year I feel like me and my friends say our “New Year resolutions” and then a couple days, weeks, months later its forgotten and over until next New Year when you can set up other unreasonable expectations for yourself to ultimately fail at.

This year I’m calling them “2011 Goals.”

I want to accomplish certain things this year so I made a list of my large goals then I broke it down to smaller weekly goals so the large goals seem less daunting. My 2011 Goals:

• Run the New York City Marathon and raise $5,000 to do so for charity
• Hike Mount Kilimanjaro
• Run the Seattle Rock ‘n Role half marathon
• Don’t procrastinate

In order to reach these large goals I am breaking each one of them down so they don’t seem to large and scary. Starting with running a half marathon. I am doing this at the end of June and hiking Mount Kilimanjaro a week after. So I developed a training schedule for the half marathon, which consists of weekly runs and cross training to work me up to the 13.1 miles at the end of June. I am assuming that with this training I will be in adequate shape to hike Mount Kilimanjaro a week after. By the end of June should be my half waypoint in training for the New York City marathon. I will develop a new training schedule to prepare me for the full marathon after the half at the end of June.

In order to raise $5,000 for the charity that I am running the New York City Marathon I have to be very disciplined. I have a game plan of sending out emails to friends and family asking for support.  It is very important that I keep on this and keep track of how much I have raised and how much I need as I go. I will ask my coach to help me with keep track of weekly checkpoints. I plan on sending out an initial email blast and seeing the response I get to it. Also I am going to ask my family to reach out to their friends who might want to donate money to the cause. I feel hesitant about asking people for money but the reason I am doing it is because all the money goes to a very good charity that will use it very wisely so if I inform my friends and family of this I think that people will be on board. Also I can’t wait to represent NYC by running through the boroughs knowing that this is a once in a life time experience and by doing this I am helping people in need.

Don’t procrastinate is one of my 2011 goals because I feel like a lot of the time I put off doing things that are not fun. There will always be things in life that are not fun but as an adult you have a responsibility to do them (see my last month’s blog post on Mastering Your Self Control (https://edgefoundation.org/blog/2010/12/15/mastering-your-self-control/). For example I hate opening my mail. I don’t know why I don’t like opening mail, I know there are cards in there and bills and things that need to be looked at, but its work and its not fun so I let me mail sit on my table for sometimes weeks until finally someone else, a friend visitin,g helps me get through it. So in 2011 I want to open my mail every day so that it doesn’t stack up and I get over this procrastinating habit I have. I talked to my coach about this and we set up a new habit to get over procrastinating.

My 2011 plan is to wake up every morning and go to the gym, in order to train for my physical 2011 goals, and then an hour every morning to check my email, open my mail and do the things that are not as fun.  Between my two-hour routine every morning of working out and non-procrastinating I should be on track to complete my 2011 goals.

Unfortunately I have not gotten the year off to a very productive start. I have not started training yet or my two-hour morning routine. I can make a lot of excuses why this hasn’t gone into effect yet, the weather, jet leg from the holidays, etc but in reality it comes down to self control which I wrote about last month. So like I said in my last blog about self-control is JUST DO IT!

On that note, I am starting my two-hour morning routine tomorrow since it is too late to do it tonight. But I am putting this in writing that I will start training tomorrow, start doing my mail tomorrow and if I don’t I have to live with the disappointment of all you readers knowing that.

If you have any words of encouragement for me I would love to hear them, I have set pretty large goals for myself this year and need help every step of the way! Also please let me know if you set 2011 goals or New Year’s resolutions for yourself. Maybe we can be helpful to each other while we face this New Year with high expectations for ourselves!