RESOLUTIONS // A new year

This time of year is intrinsically associated with a fresh start. It is a time where many of us look to make changes to our lifestyle choices, our self care, our negative habits, basically ourselves.
What worries me about this is that when that clock strikes midnight on the 1st of January, there is an immediate pressure to be a better version of yourself than you were just a minute before. So in the blink of an eye we go from living as we have wanted to, over the most festive period of the year, to immediately wanting to remodel ourselves; body and soul.

Whilst I accept that some resolutions are good. I prefer to use this time in January to reflect on the year that’s been. Whether you feel it’s been a struggle or the very best year ever, we should be looking at what’s been and rejoicing in the fact that we have travelled another year, whether with hardship or not. We did it!

Immediately putting pressure on yourself to change everything you don’t like about yourself or your life, is really too much to ask. It’s pressure you don’t need. Particularly if you’re struggling mentally and physically.

January has always been a tough month. It’s back to reality after the party season. We return to work, to responsibilities, we have too many bills to pay and we generally want to turn back the clock a month, or run a million miles.

So with all this in mind, I want to put it to you that you use this January as your time for the most loving self care of the year. To reflect on your strength to have fought through another year.

You have plans, hopes, dreams. All of this is great. Write it down. Write your goals for 2016. What would you love to achieve? What are your biggest dreams and smallest aspirations? Then look at what you achieved in 2015. You will be amazed. Then leave it there for a while.

January is hard enough with dark long miserable days, wanting to hide under the duvet. Wanting to hibernate each night. Everyone telling you to get back on that diet, get to the gym, give up alcohol, quit smoking. You know what you need to do. But I genuinely don’t feel that this is the time to do it.

Just bask in the appreciation of a new year. You survived and I’m sure there were some incredible high points. Maybe so all time lows too. Whatever. Make looking after yourself in this month, your priority.

Book a massage, have a manicure. Get home from work and eat nice food. Read a good book that will inspire you for the rest of the year. Get out and about, take in the fresh air. Write. Journal. Breathe. Spend quality time with those who make you feel good.

Your resolutions will come, but please don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself right now.
I’ve made resolutions for as long as I can remember. Hardly ever did they last a month. This is the first year where I have not resolved to change my body in some way because of the way I look. This body has been everything; fat, thin, fat again, fit, fast, strong, weak, tired, depressed, anxious, self-loathing, punished. But really It’s a body that is desperately asking me for one thing only – love.

So I’ll make one resolution. I will love this body. All of it. It’s mine. It has served me well, considering what It’s been put through. So all it will get this year is adoration, love and praise. I will eat well, exercise when I can and care for this temple. Not for something as fleeting as looking good, but for a much deeper reason. Because I need to love myself. So I plan on making this a goal for the year. Not just January.

If you make a resolution in January and then fail to meet it, then you disappoint yourself. Which is not good for the soul. As the year starts to move through, your motivation will kick in too. You will achieve all you hope for. But I ask you to just love yourself this month and just make the plans for change. Change that is good.

Resolutions suggest that you have a problem to fix. That you are a problem. You are not a problem! You may not be perfect. You may have bad habits. But they’re you. When you’re ready to change you will know. Don’t assume that this will happen on the first day of January. Or any day in January.

Love yourself. Appreciate yourself just as you are. And do this in the knowledge that this year you will make small changes. Rome wasn’t built in a day. You won’t change in a day. But you can change your attitude toward it. Look at the bigger picture and be thankful. You’re enough just as you are. A few tweaks here and there and goals to better yourself and your life, are good. But don’t do it for the wrong reasons. Do it because you want what’s best for you, so you can be the best version of you. But no pressure. Change will come when you’re ready.

Onwards and upwards my loves xxx