Here’s how to hit refresh anyway, without adding one more thing to your plate. I keep reading about fall resets and, well, sure... A fall reset is a chance to turn a metaphorical fresh page on your personal story without any of that New-Year’s-Resolution pressure.
But as a busy mom, I already feel like I’m failing at this. With one kid settled at college and another finally back in the back-to-school routine, I blinked and somehow September came and went. The calendar changed, the weather cooled, and I kept hitting reset on my reset.
It’s not exactly an auspicious start! While a fall reset sounds great in theory, in reality, it can be hard to make it happen amid chaotic mornings, after-school practices, homework, tutoring sessions, weekend sports events, making dinner, keeping a home clean, and, oh yeah, my own work. Suddenly, something that should be a fresh little personal improvement project is feeling big and weighty and like just one more item on my endless to-do list.
So for help, I turned to Dr. Rachel Goldman, a New York City-based clinical psychologist, author of When Life Happens: The Mindset Shift You Need to Manage Stress, Build Confidence, and Break Free, and a mom of two herself. Rachel, as she’s known, tells me.
Everybody is going back to school, the season is changing… it's just a natural time to be thinking about a refresh or reset.” The key to a successful reset, Dr. Rachel continues, is to keep your goals in perspective. And then identify one thing.’” Maybe you want a consistent bedtime.
Maybe you want to add movement into your day. Maybe you want family dinners to actually happen more nights than not. But landing on one small tweak to your current routine is more approachable and realistic than thinking you're going to refresh your whole life — “because that tends to work for like a week, right?” she says. (It’s like she knows us!) For me, landing on two reset “wish list” items has made this undertaking feel so much more doable.
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