This is the year I stop yelling, I promise.

So that's the big New Year's resolution. This is the year I stop yelling. I promise.

Yelling. I do it. I yell at my children, and It's not creating what I want. In the last couple months as I teach my leadership and communication course at WGU, I reflect on my life -- my strengths and weaknesses. I'm constantly reminded, "You are yelling at a child." It breaks my heart. I am giving my youth and my health to this idea of having this family of six. When I yell and disrespect them, I teach them to yell and disrespect each other. The chances of me spending my later life with a bunch of jerks who yell and disrespect each other is unlikely. So every year I see my yelling, my tone of voice, my attitude, expanded and represented in my children, and I see it creating something that I don't want for my life or in my life.

So it has to stop. I can't lose my temper as often. And when I do I can't yell and lose my cool. If I teach them nothing, so be it. They'll know there's one person in the world that always cared. If they doubt that, then I'll have many lonely Christmases ahead. I don't always know what I want from life, but sometimes it becomes more clear. I'd like to joyfully spend my time in this family as I grow old. I want these so be my people. But I've got to grow that now. I've got to plant seeds now for people that I'd want to hang out with later. So it's got a change. I have got to change.

I'm two days in. And successful. I'm trying to start each day with a mantra about children and yelling. Things like "no child deserves to be yelled at" or "there's never a reason to yell" or "treat everybody kindly" or "build something you want to keep" or "slow down. What else matters today?"

I'm trying to pay attention to the schedule, the calendar, my health, and other things that trigger me to snap, freak out, or try to control everything and everybody. I'm saying yes as often as possible. Because 90% of what l yell about doesn't matter, and never did. I'm trying to treat them like children instead of little adults. Give them responsibilities. But not too many responsibilities. Set them up for success. Help them earn the rewards. Speak softly and kindly. Model patience. Set clear boundaries.

I wouldn't believe it could be true: a New Year's resolution that actually changes who you are and how you act? A new years resolution that changes your being. Last year I committed to do yoga every single day in 2016. If I had stuck to it, it might've been a much better 2016. I remember committing to flossing every day for New Year's 2001. That didn't last either.

But I know I can do this, because for 2006, I truly did make a New Year's resolution that changed several aspects of who I am today. For New Years that year, I gave up being "too stressed and too busy." I noticed that when people approached me in graduate school they always started with "I know you're so stressed and so busy but…" This always confused me because I was in an easy graduate program and didn't have children. I was not too stressed nor too busy. But something about how I acted and how I held myself was making me unapproachable to people that I actually really did want to talk to. I'm social, and I love people. So whatever I was doing was actually creating the opposite of what I wanted in my life. It was pushing people away. So at the end of 2005 I made the New Year's resolution to stop being "too stressed and too busy." To stop using the words I am "too stressed" or I am "too busy." And I would verbalize that to the people around me. When they came to me and said, "I know you're super busy," I would correct them and apologize. I gave up being too busy as my New Year's resolution. When I told people I was giving up being two stressed for new year's, some people fought me  on it. They said, "You need stress to motivate you to action to study or succeed!!" Nope, you don't. You need excitement, energy, passion -- but it is up to you if you choose to make those things into a negative scapegoat and call it stress. You also have a choice to own those things instead. Tell some one you can't hang out with them because you are pumped to write a paper on a topic you love -- don't masquerade as a person who is too stressed to stop and talk. Do you know how offensive it is to tell somebody you are too busy for them? This became came so clear to me with this resolution in 2006. A full schedule is beautiful and exciting and yours -- a busy one has a totally different and ugly energy.

That year I held everything I learned so close in my heart, that I change so many ways that I talk to people and so many ways I think about my life,  my schedule, my calendar, and my purpose.I truly believe that I've become a more accessible and open person. But perhaps not to my children which is why this year's New Year's resolution is so critical. It's possible that I have it in my head when I deal with my children that I am back to being too stressed and too busy. Maybe deep down I think that I'm better than them or more important than them. But it's not true and again my actions are building the opposite of what I want in my life. But I know it can change. I know it can happen.

So tomorrow is day three. Will I keep succeeding? I might not. This is not a resolution I am willing to give up when I fail the first time. I hope to start each morning with my mantra. I hope I keep trying to succeed because it is at the core of everything that I want around me. It's both fully selfish and selfless at the same time. It's for them and it is for me, and it deserves my full attention. I truly believe that I am finally, 11 years later, at the cusp of another truly successful and meaningful change. Another truly successful and meaningful New Year's resolution.

Jill Fellow
801.735.7416