Welcome to my first post of 2011. As you may have noticed I took a blogging break over the silly season but now I’m back and primed to blog voraciously. Well, maybe voracious is too strong a word, but my determination to examine the events of my life is renewed following this rest from introspection.
So how are we all feeling about 2011? Do you have ambitious resolutions that will make you a more effective, bionic version of your 2010 selves? Have you fully embraced the New Year, New You frenzy that kicks in with a vengeance every January?
I haven’t. That is the short answer to my own questions. I don’t need to be a new, improved me. I don’t want to beat myself up for my “bad habits”. I don’t think that it is realistic to expect me to go from hedonist one day to healthy automaton the next. 1st January doesn’t signal a sudden switch in my behaviours. If only it were that easy.
Why would I want to set myself up for failure in 2011? I want to enjoy 2011. I want to revel in the opportunities that it brings me. I want a guilt-free 2011 where I continue to invest in myself but accept my weaknesses with love and affection.
There is nothing more insidious and exhausting than constant self recrimination. I feel that the culture of annual resolutions creates more wide spread self recrimination than it does long term positive behavioural change. People get so caught up in the date change that they believe that suddenly making the changes that they want to make in their lives will be easy. It doesn’t work that way.
You need to start with an honest appraisal of yourself. If the change of year has prompted you to reflect on yourself, your happiness and the opportunities to bring more harmony to your life, that is fabulous. But a bullet pointed list of things you will and won’t do in the coming months is the wrong way to go about it. I’d be really interested to find out the statistics around ex-smokers that successfully quit in January. I bet that the conversion rate to happy long-term ex-smokers will be discouragingly low.
If you are a smoker and you want to stop, I recommend dealing with the psychological addiction. Steer clear of the marketing gimmick that is nicotine patches (I speak from experience nicotine withdrawal isn’t what makes you go back to cigarettes) and make sure that you are stopping when you are mentally ready, which is unlikely to be suddenly at the stroke of midnight. Real life doesn’t resemble a Cinderella story in reverse. Reading Alan Carr’s book is what worked for me, if you want to explore that route, I can endorse it. However, it may not be the right solution for you. Explore the options, be honest about your triggers and be generous with yourself throughout the whole process. If you do it based on your own timetable your chances of success will increase exponentially.
Of course smoking is just one of the many popular New Year resolutions which also include: weight loss; getting fitter; stressing less; working less, and spending more time with the family. Whatever your poison(s), don’t be disappointed if 2011 doesn’t make it magically easy to change your ways. There is no date from which you will suddenly find it easy to make radical changes to your lifestyle. Frankly I don’t remember reading a manual for life that tells us that living to our full potential would be easy. It is a challenge. We live in a society that is obsessed with convenience which can skew our perception of reality.
We are all works in progress. There is no sudden “new you” but if you invest positive energy in nurturing yourself, when you are celebrating the dawn of 2012, odds are you’ll look back and realise that 2011 was a vintage year. By avoiding the creation of a mass list of resolutions, you won’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Focus on what you need on a daily basis, and you won’t lose your way.
For me, this means that I will continue to focus on the things that motivate and de-motivate me. I want to live a passionate life full of energy and creativity. So in my on-going exercises in introspection, I’ll be checking-in with myself to see whether I’m allowing myself to do that. If not, well I won’t be beating myself up about it. I’ll be going into the next day more self-aware and open to exploring new adventures.
So how are we all feeling about 2011? Do you have ambitious resolutions that will make you a more effective, bionic version of your 2010 selves? Have you fully embraced the New Year, New You frenzy that kicks in with a vengeance every January?
I haven’t. That is the short answer to my own questions. I don’t need to be a new, improved me. I don’t want to beat myself up for my “bad habits”. I don’t think that it is realistic to expect me to go from hedonist one day to healthy automaton the next. 1st January doesn’t signal a sudden switch in my behaviours. If only it were that easy.
Why would I want to set myself up for failure in 2011? I want to enjoy 2011. I want to revel in the opportunities that it brings me. I want a guilt-free 2011 where I continue to invest in myself but accept my weaknesses with love and affection.
There is nothing more insidious and exhausting than constant self recrimination. I feel that the culture of annual resolutions creates more wide spread self recrimination than it does long term positive behavioural change. People get so caught up in the date change that they believe that suddenly making the changes that they want to make in their lives will be easy. It doesn’t work that way.
You need to start with an honest appraisal of yourself. If the change of year has prompted you to reflect on yourself, your happiness and the opportunities to bring more harmony to your life, that is fabulous. But a bullet pointed list of things you will and won’t do in the coming months is the wrong way to go about it. I’d be really interested to find out the statistics around ex-smokers that successfully quit in January. I bet that the conversion rate to happy long-term ex-smokers will be discouragingly low.
If you are a smoker and you want to stop, I recommend dealing with the psychological addiction. Steer clear of the marketing gimmick that is nicotine patches (I speak from experience nicotine withdrawal isn’t what makes you go back to cigarettes) and make sure that you are stopping when you are mentally ready, which is unlikely to be suddenly at the stroke of midnight. Real life doesn’t resemble a Cinderella story in reverse. Reading Alan Carr’s book is what worked for me, if you want to explore that route, I can endorse it. However, it may not be the right solution for you. Explore the options, be honest about your triggers and be generous with yourself throughout the whole process. If you do it based on your own timetable your chances of success will increase exponentially.
Of course smoking is just one of the many popular New Year resolutions which also include: weight loss; getting fitter; stressing less; working less, and spending more time with the family. Whatever your poison(s), don’t be disappointed if 2011 doesn’t make it magically easy to change your ways. There is no date from which you will suddenly find it easy to make radical changes to your lifestyle. Frankly I don’t remember reading a manual for life that tells us that living to our full potential would be easy. It is a challenge. We live in a society that is obsessed with convenience which can skew our perception of reality.
We are all works in progress. There is no sudden “new you” but if you invest positive energy in nurturing yourself, when you are celebrating the dawn of 2012, odds are you’ll look back and realise that 2011 was a vintage year. By avoiding the creation of a mass list of resolutions, you won’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Focus on what you need on a daily basis, and you won’t lose your way.
For me, this means that I will continue to focus on the things that motivate and de-motivate me. I want to live a passionate life full of energy and creativity. So in my on-going exercises in introspection, I’ll be checking-in with myself to see whether I’m allowing myself to do that. If not, well I won’t be beating myself up about it. I’ll be going into the next day more self-aware and open to exploring new adventures.
(Pictured above: Sake, Jodie & Ian's puppy, who likes to dig holes that are 5x bigger than she is)
