New Year, New You? Give yourself a break!

New Year’s Resolutions. You either love them or hate them. Or more accurately: you do them or don’t do them. For me, they’re the kiss of death. As soon as I tell myself I can’t have something, I want it quite unreasonably. Maybe that’s because most of my attempts in the past have consisted of giving something up. For instance….

• I will not drink alcohol from Monday to Thursday
• I will stop having ice cream
• I will read instead of bingeing on Netflix

Inevitably I end up doing all of those things before I even make it to February, and perhaps in even greater excess than I did before! Maybe the answer is to focus on something you’re going to do, instead of something you’re not going to do. “I’m going to start my morning with a green juice” puts things in a more positive frame of mind than “I’m not allowed to have coffee”, for instance.

But even this kind of shift - while a step in the right direction - still requires a bit too much deprivation for me. Not a great way to start the year, especially after the year we’ve just had. I’m just not sure that I’m cut out to deliver a healthier, happier and fitter version of myself when I already implicitly aim for that all the other 11 months of the year. Putting on even more pressure might be enough to drive anyone to drink!

So I think what I might do is the opposite. I’m going to indulge. I’m going to give myself permission to nourish and nurture myself. To fill myself up. To restore. To give unto myself all that I need. There’s to be no Dry January for me. I’m going to use the month to find out what I want and then spend the year giving it to myself. And that way I might be better placed to give to others.

My New Years Resolution is abundance!

• Abundant time to do the things I love
• Abundant patience instead of judging myself too harshly
• Abundant curiosity to learn, explore, read and listen
• Abundant capacity to love others and myself

New Years Resolutions often don’t last because we’re too unfocused and not exactly clear on what the goal is. But if we just stick to one word, one word that we can use as our theme by which we try to live, we might have a better chance of succeeding. For the right reasons.

What will your word be?