On New Year’s Day, I will have a glass bowl full of 365 tiny pieces of paper sitting on a shelf in my bedroom. Each of these 365 pieces of paper will have a singular sentence: something that made me smile that day in the preceding year. Writing this sentence has become an integral part of my nightly routine. Just like how I never forget to brush my teeth—it’s a habit—writing on this tiny slip of paper has become a nightly practice. It all started on Jan. 1, 2022 as I contemplated a New Year’s resolution. Everything seemed too difficult, too time-consuming, or too pointless. However, the idea of briefly noting what made me smile that day was none of that. It takes me 30 seconds, requires only paper and a pen, and it has a real purpose. It has impacted my life tremendously.
Resolutions are hard. It’s commonly recognized that people make New Year’s resolutions every year just to give up on them by February. But, through my own experiences, I have come to recognize that this is not because resolutions themselves are inherently impossible to be consistent with; it’s because of the types of resolutions some choose to make.
First, I believe I have been able to stay consistent with my resolutions because they are tied to a different activity I have already established. For example, each time I turn out the light right before I get into bed, I check that I remembered to write down whatever made me smile that day. Most of the time, I already have, but if I haven’t, associating this custom with my pre-established habit of turning out my light ensures that I will never forget.
My success with resolutions has also come from the fact that these are small changes I am implementing in my life that don’t disrupt my set routines. For example, on Dec. 24, 2018, I wrote the first of what would become a collection of more than 1,800 poems. The poem I write every night can take me less than five minutes and, after five years of writing one without fail, it has also become a part of my nightly routine. While not specifically a New Year’s resolution, I set a goal for myself that December—I would write one poem every night for a year. The next year, I decided to continue for another year and another year after that. This Sunday will mark the start of my sixth year of poems. I have stayed consistent with this resolution, never skipping a day.
I associate my success with the fact that I decide how much I want to write every night, and it can range from three lines to two pages. This allows me to choose the amount of time I want to devote to the task. I never feel like it is too burdensome because if I don’t want to spend much time writing, I let my thoughts flow more naturally into a poem, not pausing to rewrite or choose a specific rhyming word. When I write whatever comes to mind first, my daily habit of writing a poem can take less than five minutes. Of course, if I want to spend more time writing, there is still that option, but the resolution doesn’t take up large portions of my day or change my routines dramatically, allowing me to stay consistent.
Although these habits may seem small, they are chosen intentionally, and as a result, I’ve seen huge im
pacts. My habit of writing down something that made me smile each day has greatly improved my ability to appreciate the small things around me. Throughout the day, I find myself constantly looking for things that make me smile, and when they do make me smile, I recognize them, name them, and try to remember exactly what it was. Before I started this task, I never realized how frequently things make me smile; I never thought to identify them before. Now, physically writing them down makes me more aware of the little things in my life that bring me joy. Plus, writing a poem every day has also made me a more thoughtful person. I look at the things and people around me with a different eye—one that finds the poetry in everything and everyone—and I have become much better at identifying and regulating my emotions too.
When I’m sitting in my room, feeling like nothing ever goes right, feeling like my life is full of struggles, feeling hopeless, looking over at my smile jar can flip that mindset on its head, and reading back poetry from five years ago reminds me of how far I’ve come. Having successful resolutions proved by physical manifestation of my consistency and growth makes me feel proud. I plan to continue these things next year until I have a second jar of 365 memories and a sixth journal full of poetry, and hopefully for many years after that. They are some of the only things that are constant in my life, and I truly believe these habits have made me a more reflective and appreciative person. Resolutions come in all shapes and sizes—in tiny rectangles of paper, in haikus and sonnets. I think I’ve found the ones that work for me. What will your resolution be this year?
