I still haven’t caught up to the fact that this is 2017. (I swear parts of last year fast-forwarded because they went by in such a blur.) But here we in another new year (and almost one month done of this new year). But where I would normally write about making resolutions on how I plan on eating healthier, organizing better, walking more, or keeping a diary, prepare for a shock. I didn’t make resolutions <gasp!> this year.

Every year before this one I have made resolutions. And then subsequently failed to keep every.last.one. (I think I failed to meet the diary-writing resolution every year since 1986). I not only made resolutions, I wrote them down, made check-lists, and used other goal-achieving strategies. I joined groups, tracked progress, and told others about them (for the “accountability”). But I still failed. Usually by March.

And failure sucks.

So this year, I opted to go a different route and followed my friend AM’s example—I set challenges. For me, I find setting challenges, or priorities (as author Linda Poitevin wrote about), more manageable and much more fulfilling. I can adapt challenges to what I need. I can set short-term ones, as well as longer-term ones. And more importantly, I can achieve said challenges .

You may be asking, didn’t I simply change words to use “challenge” instead of “resolution?” Maybe that’s true. But words have power and in my world, resolution = failure. For me, changing the word changes the perspective from failure to success.

For 2017, I set a simple challenge. Write something every day. Even if I only write a couple sentences about the weather. Yep, my challenge is that simple.

To meet my challenge, I bought a 2017 planner. It has a two-page monthly calendar followed by weekly pages. It’s in the weekly pages that I jot down a few thoughts each day. Maybe what I did that day, what I ate for lunch, or some random thought. And sometimes it’s just a description of the weather.

So far, so good.

I’ve been writing a little bit in my planner every day since January 1. This has motivated me to want to write more. I picked up an article I had written back in the fall and started seriously editing it. But I still wanted to do more writing.

A few weeks ago, my friend Camilla, an accountability coach (she’s awesome, go check her out!), encouraged me to start blogging again. At the time, I resisted because blogs take work. Then my friend Alexis started a great new blog, which made me reconsider. And then I started coming up with different blog posts.

Enter the new blog. And although I didn’t set the writing challenge to start a blog, look how I adapted the challenge. Now do you see? Words have power and challenges = success.