The top New Year’s resolutions for 2021 were:

1. Get in shape / exercise more

2. Lose weight

3. Save more money

In 2020 the top New Year’s resolutions were:

1. Lose weight

2. Improve finances

3. Exercise more

The top resolutions for 2019 were

1. Exercise more

2. Save more money

3. Eat healthier (#4 was to lose weight)

Notice a trend?

What in the world? If folks were able to actually accomplish their resolution, they wouldn’t be making the same ones over and over.

In the past few years, I’ve played with a different way: One Word.

One Word isn’t a resolution, it’s an intention.

There is a tightness, a black and white quality to a resolution. A resolution is a goal, something you want to be different, something you either do or don’t do.

An intention, on the other hand, is a feeling, a process, an approach, something you want to weave into everything. I can apply an intention to anything: my work, my relationships, my health, my social action...and perhaps my goal.

When sex educator and researcher, Emily Nagoski https://www.emilynagoski.com/ gives a talk or an interview or a workshop the number one question people ask is, “Am I normal?”

“Am I normal?”

I know the fear under the question. I’ve asked it about myself. It’s the fear of being a weirdo, of being on the outside, of being broken, of being the ONLY ONE who feels this way/ looks this way/ wants this thing / does not want that thing.

When folks ask this question, Emily Nagoski always answers “unless you’re in pain, you’re normal.” I appreciate her clarity since we all need reassurance that we’re OK and that we belong.

Even so, I’ve started to wonder, what IS normal, anyway? It seems to me that “normal” is like “perfect.” It’s not actually a thing. It’s an illusion of being the “right” (and only acceptable) way to be.

“It is not joy that makes us grateful, it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

~ Brené Brown

In an episode of her her Unlocking Us podcast this summer, Brené Brown dropped this truth bomb. I gasped and scribbled it on a scrap of paper.

I read the words again. That can’t be right, can it? People who are joyful are grateful because of all the joy juice they are swimming in, right? Not the other way around.

Dr. Brown and her sisters did a series of episodes celebrating the 10th anniversary of her book The Gifts of Imperfection https://brenebrown.com/hubs/the-gifts-hub/, and while I loved all of their topics and conversations, it was this one quote that made me pick up her book again.

I have a contentious relationship with perfectionism. As soon as I think I’m all chill and letting the proverbial chips fall where they may, I find myself scrambling around to tuck in the corners, tidy everything into precious packages, pick up all those chips and stack them into piles.