by Are you sick of them yet? You know the posts, the ones that flood social media the first week of the year claiming “this is my year!”
This year I will eat all the kale and give up carbs.
This year I will go to the gym every day after work.
This year I will start a business and quit my dead end job.
This year I will write a novel.
This year I will _(fill in the blank)____.
Don’t misunderstand, I have been there. I was notorious for making the New Year’s resolutions only to be half-assing it by January 27thand having completely abandoned my resolution by the second week in February at best. One year I tried to increase my chances of being successful with maintaining my resolution by making a goal that wasn’t as big. Instead of “I will write every single day” I would tell myself “I will post on my blog twice a month.”
Big surprise, making my goal smaller didn’t work either.
I also tried to set myself up for success by making sure that I had all of the tools at my disposal so when that designated start date arrived, I would be ready. If my goal was to “get healthy” (a rather vague goal if you ask me) I bought cute work out clothes with motivational quotes on the front, bought Tupperware free of leftover spaghetti stains for meal prep and downloaded all of the high energy 90’s pop music on my ipod. I scoured Pinterest for all the quinoa recipes and made my grocery lists in the order that I would find them in the produce section.
I prepared everything I could…. except my mindset.
As it turns out, this was my missing golden ticket.
In early 2019 I began to feel extremely uncomfortable and anxious. What was worse was I couldn’t pinpoint the root cause. My life is relatively boring and predictable. I don’t say this flippantly, but as far as trauma and stress go, I’m as vanilla as it gets. Having gotten married at 23 and my first child at 25, I spent a large portion of my twenties raising babies and establishing my career. Now here I was, ten years and four children later and I felt like a stranger in my own skin. I ultimately found myself blindly starting a path to self-discovery, although I was completely oblivious to it at the time.
I read everything I could get my hands on that spoke to that small spark inside me; that fire that has been suppressed by sippy cup refills and preschool drop offs. I listened to podcasts on loop and took every recommended test and self-help tool to learn more about myself.
Basically, I spent 2019 figuring myself out.
Despite my solo work, I continued to feel uneasy. A leap of faith in July landed me in Dallas, Texas with one of my girlfriends for a conference that I didn’t realize I needed until my feet hit the “You Were Made for More” stamped pavement. The conference solidified everything I had been struggling to piece together for the past few months: it wasn’t my lack of motivation, knowledge or preparation that kept me from achieving my goals.
It was my mentality.
By putting in the work, (re)discovering who I am, I have been able to shift my perspectives and focus my efforts on using what I have learned and apply it to maximize results in all areas of my life. My energy level, mental clarity, marriage, health, friendships, work productivity, sleep, motivation and confidence all improved in 2019. Are they perfect? Hell no, but I’m much further along than I was before.
You don’t need to wait until Monday to start a healthy eating plan.
You don’t need to have a fancy website to start a business.
You don’t need an anniversary to celebrate your marriage.
And you certainly don’t need a new year to become a better/stronger/smarter/richer/healthier/happier person.
A start date is just that, a day on the calendar. If you want change, real change, change your current way of thinking. If your current mindset was serving you, what you are doing would be working.
If your mentality hasn’t changed since last year; if you haven’t learned how to combat those toxic voices that tell you to quit, how to ward off those triggers that make you sink back into your old habits, or how to push through your comfort zone when motivation is lacking then no amount of “this is my year” Facebook posts or vision boards will generate new results.
So set the big goals for yourself, but remember that drafting a game plan is only the beginning of the play. Execution of the plan and following through with your commitment when it becomes inconvenient is the hardest part.
“Set big goals for yourself, but remember
that drafting a game plan
is only the beginning of the play.”
Prepare for errors, I assure you they will happen and evaluate the weaknesses in your internal blueprint that may throw you off course. No one else can hold you back, but you can.
Figure out who you are; what drives you, what limits you, what do you do to sabotage your goals and plan accordingly.
This can be your year, but you have to change in order to see results.
