New Year, Same You?

New Year/New You?

I am all about self help, reaching goals and self improvement. If you are like me, your email inbox is full of New Years messages that encourage New Year, New You! These messages might be winding you up to start Whole 30 and get that holiday weight gain in check. You probably have received gym discounts and coupons codes to make 2019 the year you get in shape. Join a yoga class! Start rock climbing! Sign up (again!) to run that marathon! Or maybe you watched Marie Kondo on Netflix and you are inspired to clean out and declutter your home. Maybe you, like me, love the idea of a new planner to fill out. Perfectly organizing your life. Maybe you sat down with your calendar and color coded it to perfection. Say goodbye to the 2018 Hot Mess Express and Hello to the new hopes and dreams of losing weight, gaining muscle, and never missing a beat at home or at work in the New Year! Ahh the New Year/New You goals are enticing, aren’t they?

If on Day 9 of Dry January you ended up with glass of wine at Happy Hour, or you ran late to your weekly status meeting because you forgot to renew it on your calendar, or if you caught a cold and missed they gym, and broke a promise to yourself, I want to offer you an alternative perspective.

How about this year is the year that instead of striving for perfection and beating yourself up when you inevitably fail at some of your unrealistic attempts, you take a different approach.

What if the only resolution you made was no resolution, but instead just accepted yourself exactly where you are at? What if you offered yourself more compassion for being human? More forgiveness for your mistakes? What if your reaction to any action was to love yourself more? How could this simple mindset of accept yourself, love yourself, forgive yourself drastically improve every day of 2019?

I am guessing you would easily love, accept, and forgive a friend who was in the same boat. Make 2019 the year to befriend yourself. Stop beating yourself up with blame and shame and start allowing yourself to be the imperfect, unique, and wonderful being that you already are. You will recover much faster from failures (that were actually opportunities for growth), by practicing forgiveness on yourself. Loving yourself more is the best motivation to take care of yourself with a good diet and exercise. Loving yourself and respecting your time is an effective way to set boundaries, remove clutter from your calendar and increase productivity. If you’ve tried resolutions before and they haven’t stuck, how about trying accepting yourself where you are at this year?

New Year/Same You!