The gift we are giving ourselves for the new year.
Happy New Year Good Girls,
We’re a few days into the new year and I don’t want to sound cliche but 2020 already feels different. Not in a bad way, but rather refreshing. That refreshing feeling may be related to a new year giving us a chance to start over, correct some traits we’re not too proud of or it could be related to us entering a new decade, either way we have made it to another year and that in itself is worth being happy about. The weighted responsibility of making the most of the new year while reflecting on what the past year looked like is a familiar feeling and can definitely be overwhelming. There’s just something about self-reflection and wanting to improve that is so hopeful and rewarding. Unfortunately that’s where a lot of the optimism stops, when it’s time to put in the work we create so many excuses as to why it cannot be done.
Not this year.
In order for plans to work out we have to start somewhere and be intentional about what we want our end goal to look like. That’s it, just start. Now, I know that “just start” is very broad and it doesn’t take a genius to know that starting has to happen in order to finish, so I’m going to highlight three effective ways to jumpstart your resoultion:
BE SPECIFIC. If you’re anything like me, you have a hundred things on your mind, countless ideas, responsibilities and engagements to attend. We can multitask but more times than not our resolutions will take a backseat to this adulting concept (I hate it here). I don’t care if your list of resolutions is three bullet points or if you have a laundry list of improvements. If you are aimlessly wandering around the idea of improving yourself and aren’t specific in what needs to change for the goal to be met it’ll never happen. You want to run your first marathon this year? Look up what races are in your area for 2020. Now your resolution goes from “I want to run a marathon”, to “I want to run in the local 5k six months from now.”
BABY STEPS. Change doesn’t happen overnight, and I personally feel that’s because change can be scary. Most people are afraid of change, with good reason. For some people they don’t have time to waste on being scared and that is very admirable. But for the rest of us, baby steps allow us to dip our feet and not commit to what we don’t know. Baby steps and intentionality go hand in hand when it comes to progress, it makes you want to keep going, to grow into something bigger and eventually blossom into your full potential. Start small. Your training doesn’t have to be a three mile run at 5 am. Start by walking twice a week. Get your body used to being outdoors. Slow and steady will always win the race.
3. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELF AND HAVE FUN. If your resolution involves you trying something new, make sure that you’re being patient with yourself. You don’t know everything and that’s ok, we are learning as we go so don’t be so critical. Make sure kind thoughts crowd your mind and celebrate when you meet goals within your resolution. Also keep in mind that you are not obligated to stick to a resolution simply because you started it. If you realize this ain’t it, keep it pushing. Lastly you owe it to yourself to have fun with whatever your resolutions are. Trying new things should be exciting. If we can’t have fun, why are we here?
