Resolutions Revisited

In 2009 I resolve to stop yelling at my kids.

That is precisely the New Year’s pledge that Marion Budnick broke the first week of the new year. It wasn’t that she didn’t have positive intentions. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to end the yelling. It wasn’t even that she wasn’t sincere about her goal. All of those were firmly in place. Yet something else was missing.

Marion Budnick sincerely wanted to stop yelling at her children, but she had no idea of what to do instead. She knew what she wanted to stop, but she didn’t have an appropriate replacement behavior in mind for when she felt like yelling.