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PrintResolutions, Delusions and the Time of Your Life
We all know about New Year’s Eve—the countdown to midnight, the fireworks shows, celebrations and parties—Happy Bubbles of Champaign, those short lived feelings of effervescence.
The New Year: a promise of new beginnings,
Hope for the future—
Out with the old and In with the new—echoes of Tennyson.
“Ring out the old, ring in the new…The year is going let him go, Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
It’s just a bit too familiar, too comfortable; THAT is one of the problems with resolutions. It’s nearly as if resolutions are meant to be broken. (I know I’ve broken a lot more resolutions than I’ve kept.) It’s like I have to muster up lots of “will power” or something called resolve to keep a resolution, and what about the expectation?
The point in time when it becomes disappointment.
“I didn’t feel like going to the gym.”
“Well the cake looked ‘Oh So Good!’”
“Well here we go again.”
“I didn’t stick to my guns.”
So people tend to give up. Maybe next year…
So, I don’t ‘buy’ into the idea of Resolutions anymore. It’s too familiar and a poorly chosen word. I prefer to call it making decisions and setting goals and direction: a process that continues through time with little events along the path.
Diet and exercise are the issues most often addressed at the beginning of the year. Both deal with the physical body and can be measured-size, weight, strength, and endurance.
Retail stores will feature exercise equipment, treadmills (a lovely word), pedometers, protein drinks that promise to make you slim.
You can also make little changes to what you are Already doing and set realistic goals. Build into your goals the expectation that you may need to adjust them. (If you’ve ever walked along a cow path or a game trail you know they don’t go in a straight line.)
Eat an orange at breakfast instead of drinking a glass of orange juice. Add an apple or a serving of applesauce. Add a little running in with your walking. Try a yoga class in addition to exercise. Add lifting free weights to the weightlifting you do on machines. Try out a new behavior, a new exercise, a different food. Go back to school. Buy fresh foods at your local market.
And, as they say in ballet:
“Stay Hungry!”
Happy New Year!
John Lambert
—Writer, facilitator and Primary trainer at Small Change Works.
PHONE: 256-590-3824
Email: SmallChangeWorks@gmail.com
