7 New Year’s Resolutions You Shouldn’t Be Making

Since the dawn of the new millennium, friends have sent me emails

lauding the upcoming year as the one we were all going to make it. "2006, this is our year!" "It's okay that your husband got caught embezzling in 2007, 2008 is really gonna go your way." "2010, you guys! I can feel it!" So I joked on Facebook the other day that 2012 is the year I'm gonna stop saying this is the year. And why not? Why should there be any more pressure on me this year to finally make my life perfect, make myself look amazing and make all my dreams come true? There shouldn't. That doesn't mean, however, that we can't resolve to help ourselves grow in the coming months. Let's just be a little more realistic, shall we?

It's time to stop making resolutions like:

1. This is the year I'm going to stop swearing
BS. No f-ing way that's gonna happen, Susie Greene. It's okay. Teach your kids that some words are for grown ups and that you have to have years of life experience and therefore disappointment and frustration behind you in order to deserve the gloriousity of the f-word singing forth from your throat. My daughter and I have a pact about it, actually. She says I can say the f-word as much as I want, as long as I use it in a good way. For example, "Oh my God, this pizza is f-ing amazing!" Or, "Holy &^*#, you cleaned your f-ing room! Good job!"

2. This is the year I'm going to get into really good shape
Really? Really good shape? Why not start slow there, Susan Powter. I feel like I want to start working out more in 2012, like I'm ready to take dance classes again (which will probably boil down to hip-hop aerobics at some gym somewhere, but hey, it's a start). But I'm not going to put pressure on myself to say this is the year that I get down to a size 12 again (for some of us, that's actually a goal weight) because I don't know if I can make that happen. But I can probably live up to the idea of dancing more, you know? Even if it's just in my living room to The Fresh Beat Band.

Related: 10 ways I vow to be a better mom in 2012

3. This is the year I'm going to get rich
Ha, okay, good luck with that, Suze Orman. We'd all like to have more money or have our businesses finally take off, but why not start with a smaller goal? For example, by December 2012, I'm going to pay off one particular line of credit. That in and of itself is a huge goal that will require other financial sacrifices in order to make it happen. I've paid down debt before and it feels incredible, but one thing you can't do is set yourself up to fail. Don't try to pay down a $50,000 debt in a year if that's something you can't do. (Trust me, you can't, especially if you only make $36K.) Start with a realistic amount, like $6,000. That's $500 a month in payments over the course of a year. Then figure out which expenses you can cut in order to meet that payment amount each month.

4. This is the year I'm going to be a better mother
I actually made that resolution in 2010, Susan Sarandon. I have a slip of paper that says, "Be a better mother." Then underneath that it says, "Don't swear as much." We all like the idea of being a better mother, but what does that really mean? Meredith broke down what being a better mom means to her (reading books she doesn't like, keeping artwork, going outside more), but without specific goals in this arena you are destined to fail. The last thing any mother needs is more guilty feelings of inadequacy! Take a good honest look in the mirror and identify the few areas where you actually might need to improve, then give yourself credit for all of the wonderful things you already do for your children. I think the one area where I could still show growth is in reacting to accidents and spills and things like that. But other than that I'm pretty much totally perfect, you know?

5. This is the year I'm going to meet the love of my life
As if that's in your control, Susan Lucci. Married ladies, I hope you're not making this resolution, but I know I have a tendency to live my life as if it's just one giant waiting game. Waiting for the thing that's going to make my career break, waiting to find the great love of my life. I walk through each day thinking, "If only I could find that big, giant love that I know I'm destined for, everything would have meaning and I would feel complete." I don't know if that's true or not, but it kinda makes all the days in between feel sort of pathetic on some level. I'm afraid that sometimes when I'm in a wistful mood like that, I'm missing the energy coming at me from the great love I live with, my beautiful daughter. She once told me I didn't need a romantic relationship because, "We're romantic! We love each other!" It's kinda true.

Related: 10 awesome ways to display your New Year's resolutions

6. This is the year I'm going to 'be extraordinary'
Woah, woah, woah, Susan B. Anthony! Small victories, huh? Again with the super generic, huge, seemingly unattainable goal! Resolutions like "be extraordinary" listed in this post by Michelle seem a bit overwhelming to me. (Michelle is in her 20s and I'm in my 30s, which may explain the differences in our resolve. While I remember the way the idea of being extraordinary used to call to me, now I'm perfectly content with the idea of just showing up.) It's this type of vague call of duty that trips us up in life and makes us feel like if we're not "extraordinary," we're not good enough. Don't worry about being extraordinary, ladies. Why not start with being consistent? I managed to do a lot of extraordinary things in the last three years by simply keeping my head down and doing the work that needed to be done in that stage of my development. It's humbling, to be sure, but I know now that the solid foundation on which my life is built is not going to crumble from beneath me when I am eventually ready to fly. We don't look at our children when they're born and tell them, "Okay, now run!" We hold them and teach them how to sit, then crawl, then walk, then run. If you're still learning how to crawl, enjoy it.

7. This is the year I'm going to keep a perfect house
Is it, Lazy Susan? Is your house really going to look perfect when it's full of kids? Look, my mother taught me that Godliness is next to cleanliness, so I know the pressure we're all under to make our homes look like Nate Berkus'. (Curse you, Oprah!) But can you break that desire down a bit? I learned as a result of traveling back and forth from Upstate New York to the city, sleeping on couches and floors and working on buses and airplanes that we really don't need as much "stuff" as we think we do. So something that will go a long way to helping you keep an organized and beautiful home is purging it of things you don't need. Luckily my Brooklyn apartment is so small that I am constantly forced to examine my goods and get rid of or give things away. But it doesn't come naturally. I had to go to therapy to give myself permission to clean my bedroom and let go of all of the things I no longer wanted from my marriage. And in pursuing this new neatnick lifestyle, I joked with my friend Desiree that if I fail one day to make the beds as I've promised, I feel like I might as well throw it all away and become a heroin junkie. Consistency is key, as is going easy on yourself.

- By Carolyn Castiglia

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