This year, as I was thinking about my New Year’s resolutions, I thought, “Seriously, who are you kidding? You’ll forget them by the end of January. Then, you’ll remember them next January, feel guilty and pretty much make the same ones over again.”

This has been my pattern for quite a few years. More power to you if you make and follow through with your New Year’s Resolutions. I really do admire you but I think you might be the exception and not the rule.

Historically, from the time of the Babylonians, people made these promises because they wanted to strive to be better. I think it’s in our nature to do so. We all want to do better in our lives, maybe shed some vices that we have and add some virtues that we don’t have.

However, I feel that I unintentionally set myself up for failure each year because I want to make a big change in my life, a change that’s grand and noticeable, I have unrealistic expectations of myself. I don’t think that I’m alone in this. I think many of you, out there, also want to make that “grand gesture.” The “Ego” part of our “Self” wants to be recognized for accomplishments, even it it’s only by the rest of our own “Self.” I believe that’s in our nature, as well. I know I feel great when I can say, “Good job, Adelia. You did good.”

So, how do I not set myself up for failure with another round of unrealistic New Year’s resolutions? When I usually make my New Year’s resolutions, I pretty much reflect on what I didn’t accomplish over the year. This year, I decided to stop at reflection instead of continuing on to making resolutions.

I thought, “What if I simply reflected on what I did accomplish over the year instead, and congratulate myself for that?” Kind of like a retroactive resolution. There were some things that I accomplished over the past year that were New Year’s resolution-worthy and that should be celebrated at the end of each year. End of Year’s Reflections.

When I started my End of Year’s Reflections, I realized, hey, I didn’t do too bad. There were things that I actually did that made me a better version of myself. Little things that could be added up and weighed, successfully, against one “grand gesture.”

The old adages say that “we’re our own worst critics” and “we’re hardest on ourselves.” I don’t believe that it’s natural for most of us to pat ourselves on the back. (Yes, there are some folks who do that regularly but most of us don’t.) End of Year’s Reflections can be the one time of the year where you give yourself permission to do just that.

I don’t know, maybe some of you think that it’s cheating. Claiming a retroactive resolution is easy because you already accomplished it. Me, since, I haven’t been successful at being proactive about my resolutions, I was willing to try something different. Another old adage says, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

So, I changed things up this year and I like the results of my End of Year’s Reflections. I think it set the tone for my next year far better because it was encouraging to realize that I had already made some changes in my life for the better. It gave me the confidence to believe that I would also make positive changes over the next year.

And … you can do it at once, get it done and not have to worry about remembering to do it all throughout the year.