25 Jan New Year’s Resolutions- ABA Style

This time of year, your New Year’s resolution may be in one of two places. Option one: “Full steam ahead, I’ve got this!” Option two: “Well… It seemed like a good idea…”

Life can get in the way of sticking to your goals. Below, we break one family’s collective New Year’s resolution down into steps to help make progress possible. The same way we write goals for kids, we can write them for ourselves.

Our Goal

To read together as a family for 10 minutes every night before bed.

The first step in planning your resolution is to know where you’re coming from. In the technical sense, we call this “baseline”.

Our Baseline

We read together maybe once or twice a week and it usually isn’t planned – or I pick a book that the kids are not interested in- so sometimes it only lasts for a couple minutes.

Next, we add benchmarks. Benchmarks are mini-goals that lead up to meeting the big one.  If your baseline and your ultimate goal are really close, you may not need a lot of benchmarks. If it feels like there is a long way to go, adding more benchmarks is helpful. This way, you know you are working on something attainable and can recognize progress as you take steps in the right direction. 

Our Benchmarks

• Read together for three minutes, three nights per week
• Read together for three minutes, five nights per week
• Read together for eight minutes, five nights per week
• Read together for 10 minutes, five nights per week
• Read together for 10 minutes, seven nights per week 

For added accountability to yourself, adding dates to those benchmarks can be helpful. This helps break your marathon down into sprints, each to be completed by a set time.