Do we need New Years Resolutions….


Sometimes I wonder if on New Years the count down is really to the new year or to the “new you” we are all thinking that we are magically going to find on the other side.
Year after year we make promises to ourselves that we will eat better, exercise more, stay calm when we would have otherwise been flustered, the list goes on and on. Yet year after year as disappoint ourselves by being unable to stick to our goals. We see ourselves as failures, or think that there is something wrong when we aren’t able to stick to the plan. But the truth is that there is nothing wrong with us and a heck of a lot wrong with our expectations!
Somehow we convince ourselves that when the number changes at the end of the date we will be a completely new person, when we’ve made absolutely no plan as to how to get from point a to point b. The change of year doesn’t suddenly make us love previously hated vegetables, or make our kids quiet when we need them to be at the end of the day, or make us motivated to run sprints on the treadmill on a cold snowy night instead of sitting on a couch with a cup of hot chocolate. Basically- you should expect to be the same person tomorrow that you are today. So why not set goals that are more realistic to where you are right now and start slow.
If you have a grand goal for where you want to be then this New Years Eve instead of setting goals for 2019 let’s focus on New Years 2020. Ask yourself where you want to be in a year from now and set one small goal to getting there.
If you want to be running sprints next year, start by trying to walk tomorrow!
If you want to include new vegetables into your repertoire, make it a goal to serve a new vegetable on your table every week, by the end of the year you’ll have 52 new vegetables!
This year challenge every person in your family to set one goal for where they want to see themselves next year and 4 smaller steps that it will take to get there. You can do a “quarterly check in” to see how everyone is doing with their goals and make any necessary adjustments along the way.
A New Year doesn’t mean that you will magically become a new you, nor should it, because there is nothing wrong with the old you. But if you have an area of your life you would like to work on then forget New Years 2019 and let’s look forward to the whole year ahead!