How Are Those New Year’s Resolutions Going?
On New Year’s Day I went to my local 24 hour gym. I expected it to be quieter than normal (which is very quiet), with people at home people watching football and licking their New Years Eve wounds. I couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact, every cardio machine was taken and the place was abuzz with slamming weights and heavy breathing.
Each year about 1/3 of Americans commit to New Year’s resolutions; weight loss and more exercise are the perennial resolution leaders. According to SurveyMonkey by January 14th about 25% of resolute Americans already let their new found convictions slip through their fingertips. It’s easy to understand the difficulty in changing our routine. Even when we’re trying to do something better for ourselves we’ve got family, work, and just plain inertia, holding us back from changing our routine.
Each year “volunteer more” rounds out the top 10 list of New Year’s Resolutions. I’m not sure what the success rate for volunteering resolutions is, but our friends at Practically Green have a way to help. Practically Green is a social media platform that provides ideas and resources for taking personal “sustainable actions” related to health, water and energy conservation, waste reduction and community involvement.
As you take more actions you score points and can earn “badges” in different categories like Green Shopper and Natural Beauty. We started using it here at Kendall-Jackson last year and have had a great time creating a little competition to see who can score the most points.
Practically Green has just launched a new badge called Get Active that says, “Never fear; the get active badge isn’t about fitness! We created it to reward you for taking community-related actions that have the potential to influence others to take similar actions. Together we can.”
Even if you’re not a New Year’s Resolution kind-of-person, you might find it fun to use Practically Green to guide you to living a healthier and more community-connected life. Then you can ping your friends to join and take some action too.
