Every new year social media is filled with posts about setting goals for the new year, creating new habits, or letting go of old ones.
And every year I usually do something along those lines, buy new planners and tell myself this is the year I will finally use them. I plan a new habit, commit to eating healthier, exercising more, etc.
And almost every year I fail at them.
I have a pretty healthy dose of ADHD paired with some other fun things, and having only been diagnosed for two years I have never taken my ADHD into account when planning for my new year. (there will be some longer blogs and videos on ADHD and agility coming soon)
I saw a post back in December about setting New Year’s resolutions with ADHD and instead of setting a goal or resolution that can set us up for failure if it is not met, set up acceptance goals.
The examples of acceptance goals used in the post were things like:
“I’m going to ask for help when I am struggling”
“I am going to say no when I am feeling burnt out”
” I am going to put my mental health first”
I am aiming to work on acceptance goals for this year instead of new years resolutions that can look like this:
“I am going to lose 10 pounds”
“I am going to train my dog every day”
“I am not drinking soda”
I think acceptance goals for agility/dog training can work as well, and could look something like this:
“I am going to accept my dog for who they are”
“I am going to put my dog’s mental health/confidence first”
“I am going to write down one positive thing from every run at a trial”
Another thing that was talked about was instead of having a resolution or goal for the new year, focus on a word, and make that your focus for the new year. So it is not a “goal” in a sense, but when you are struggling, or looking for focus, you can think about your word for the year.
Your word can be something like
“Confidence”
“Progress”
“Joy”
or in one of the comments someone chose the word “Water” because water can change and flow, it also has the strength to move rocks, or over time can change the shape of a mountain.
So for the new year, I am choosing a word as my focus, and working on acceptance goals, both for my personal life and agility.
Want to discuss this further? I will be talking more in-depth on this subject on the open board in the Fluid Motion Community
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