Atomic Resolutions

It’s been four years since we started a year-end tradition in my family where we all wrote down our goals for the new year on a large piece of paper. Those who were far away, in other countries, sent their resolutions so that we could add them to the paper for them.

Eventually, as the already dire situation continued to worsen in Venezuela, more members of my family ended up living abroad and it was harder to travel there to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve together. Finding paper was itself a hard task. It occurred to me that it would be better to use a collaborative virtual platform where everyone could write their goals and then follow up on them. So we did, and it worked quite well. We used Padlet and put together our poster, digitally this time.

Every three months, I would follow up on everyone’s goals through the family WhatsApp group chat. Since then, we have managed to move forward and, in the best scenario, complete projects that we had postponed. Most of these goals are related to skill acquisition. I remember starting with just a few resolutions the first time. This year I have a total of 22.

In January, the book that opened our book club and the year 2020 was Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear. It has always been one of my goals to read a large number of books in a year (e.g. 50 to 60). At Goodreads, I always sign up for the reading challenge with this fairly high goal. This year I decided to go for only 12. This number is guaranteed to be completed in our book club, as we read one book per month. I also lowered the number because I want to read more academic books related to my role in education, and these generally take longer. Even though this approach has proven to work, James Clear states that in order to truly change behavior, your identity has to change. He explains it as follows:

“True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. Anyone can convince themselves to visit the gym or eat healthy once or twice, but if you don’t shift the belief behind the behavior, then it is hard to stick with long-term changes. Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.

• The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
• The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
• The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.”

My goal now is to become a better reader. Due to the pace of life I have been having lately, even in quarantine, finding time to read is not an easy task. That is why a few months ago I ventured into the world of audiobooks. I purchased a subscription to Audible from Amazon, and it has helped me maintain my “reading” pace.

Some of the resolutions I set for this year, goals I want to achieve and skills I want to improve or learn, are covered by COETAIL. I am used to doing at least one professional development course a year, and I am lucky enough to work at a school that has always offered that opportunity. This year they approved me to join COETAIL, so I am working on this resolution already. One of the skills I am trying to improve is my written and oral communication. COETAIL has pushed me in that regard. The simple fact of completing Course 1 on time is already challenge enough as I catch up to the rest of the COETAILers. My actionable steps to improve my writing in English are:

• Read the resources for the week’s lesson
• Brainstorm additional resources related to the topic for use in the blog post
• Write the first draft
• Share a Google Doc with colleagues for proofreading and suggestions, always revising their comments together or with a third person (shoutout to Billy, María Clara, María de los Ángeles, Eduardo, Sarah, Michelle, Priyanka, and Jose Antonio)
• Format the clean post in my COETAIL Journal, adding hyperlinks, pictures, and tags

Following these steps, I have noticed my first drafts are more complete, take less time to write, and receive fewer comments from my network of proofreaders.

Other resolutions that I have, and that COETAIL is helping me achieve, are to become a Google Certified Educator Level 2 and to put together a professional website. Now, I can use the COETAIL journal as a starting point.