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Isn't a year a long time, when just getting through a day can take everything you have? Let's focus on goals for the DAY.

1. Priorities YOU decide how and where you want or need to devote your energy. High-priority items, such as going to work, must be done if humanly possible. (If you absolutely can't make it to work or do other high-priority tasks, how will you spend your downtime? What will you do to help yourself feel better and get back to functioning?) Low-priority tasks are like luxuries-they are nice, but you can live without them. If my linen closet is messy, I can still find a towel. If I really need some time for myself today, and I don't take some time, my mental health may be effected. If I do make some time, how can I best use it? What activity is going to be the most helpful in the time I have available?

2. Mini-Goals and your success with them contribute to more significant and long term goals. Say that you exercise by walking for 15 minutes a day. How about 17 minutes tomorrow? Then maybe 18 or 19 minutes could be within your reach in the next day or two.
-Or, maybe you have a plan to improve your diet to enhance your overall health. Do you have to begin an entirely different way of eating today, or can you focus on breakfast and add in lunch and dinner as time goes on? -Perhaps your pain level has plateaued. On a scale of zero being no pain to ten being intense pain worthy of an emergency room visit, has your pain stayed a "five" for a length of time? What can you do today to bring the level to four and one-half? Deep breathing, maintained touch, relaxation, imagery, exercise? If we don't try to control our pain, it will control us.
**Sometimes the difference between sticking with your mini-goals or not could be as simple as writing down the plan for the day. Making a written list reminds us and may help us to take action. Likewise, journaling your progress can be encouraging, especially when you review your journal on one of those "bad" days.

3. One day at a time: If we get ahead of ourselves we can forget to live and appreciate the "now". Sometimes one hour at a time is all we can deal with. Make it though that hour and then tackle the next hour. How many people who make New Year's Resolutions follow-through for the whole year? Right, very few. New Days Resolutions!

We can't control all of the events that will happen in our lives in the year 2001. We CAN control how we respond and what can be done TODAY to make life a little more enjoyable or meaningful.
HAPPY NEW DAY!!
- Joyce Tredeau