Resolution Bingo
In the days leading up to New Year’s Day, my daughter, Stephanie, and I were discussing our resolution plans. We’re both avid resolution and list makers. We talked about all the pitfalls of making resolutions and we wanted to make our resolutions more joyful and less about “accomplishing something big,” which might be bound to fail. Almost every year, I make a resolution to exercise more or lose weight, and it’s the one resolution I regularly fail because it feels so overwhelming. I also mentioned wanting to finish a draft of a book I’m working on (another goal I’ve routinely fallen short of). My daughter pointed out that was too big a goal.
On New Year’s Eve, we dug into the conversation again and Stephanie said she’d decided to create a resolution bingo card rather than a list of resolutions or even just a single big goal. She wanted things she could cross off and maybe make bingo. Or not, but it would still look like she accomplished some things with different squares filled in. She had a friend do this last year, she said, and she enjoyed it and felt successful at the end of the year. She had things like “Visit a place you’ve never been” and “Read a book by a new author.” These were achievable goals that required some effort, but not too much.
After I recovered from the NYE festivities the next day, I decided to create my own resolution bingo card. I’d been circling around many ideas for my goals this coming year and was having trouble focusing. I’ve moved to a new place. I’m at a crossroads in my career. I have a lot that I want to do to make my life fulfilling and meaningful. As I thought about my card, I knew I needed to break my bigger goals into specific manageable tasks or mini goals, and I knew that it would be easier to achieve bigger goals if I could celebrate the smaller wins.
As I started putting my card together, I considered the three big areas I wanted to focus on: health, reading/writing, and connecting with people. Some people suggest picking a theme for the year rather than making resolutions. And I have done that in the past. The mindset is helpful, for sure, but I need a little more to stay motivated.
I also had to consider that I really like novelty. It’s been hard for me at times to stick to a resolution because I get bored, so I factored that in. And I thought about the how more than the what. I focused on different tasks or activities I can do that fall under these themes. For example, I want to exercise more, but how do I achieve that? One way is to do activities I enjoy. And, leaning into the novelty idea, don’t do the same thing every day. On my bingo card, I have “Walk 500 miles” and I have “Go on a hike” and “Go kayaking.” All of these are exercise related, but they’re easily achievable and I can mark them off my bingo card before the end of the year, more than likely.
In the connecting theme, I once again considered the how and considered different ways I can connect. So I have “Join an organization or group” and “Send birthday cards to 5 people” and “Take a cooking class” (which might achieve both the connecting and the health themes). For reading/writing, which I put together because they tend to be mutually reinforcing activities, I have “Write 10 poems” and “Read 15 books” among other goals.
I have some other smaller goals on my card that don’t fit my themes, but are things I want to do and are fairly easy to accomplish, like “Organize my office” and “Create an original cocktail”.
Using a combination of themes and the bingo card idea helped me create some interesting goals for the year that could lead to greater outcomes and simultaneously help me feel successful, unlike older resolutions that were often too big (lose 20 pounds, finish a book) or too hard to maintain (walk every day). This way, I may not achieve everything on my bingo card, but there’s a chance at getting bingo, and I can use the card to guide my activities and make decisions about what to do when my motivation may start to flag. I can imagine saying to myself, “You wanted to go on a hike and haven’t done that yet. Let’s make a plan.”
I also have plans to keep going with the bingo card and, as I fill the square of my card, replace it with something new. For example, if in May, I’ve read my 15 books, I may swap in a “Read 25 books” square. I saw some people created a bingo card every month. Seemed like too much to me right now. I might not add to my goals, and that’s okay. Afer all, I may want to focus elsewhere once I’ve achieved something. And for me, that’s the point. I have such a variety of goals and ways I want to improve my life that I don’t need to focus on just one thing all year, though I do hope to build a few new habits — and most of all, have some fun!
