This is the repost of my blog post from January 2015, in case you fall off the resolution bandwagon.
Once again we’re finding ourselves at the beginning of January with hope for another year. Have you made any resolutions? Have you already broken them and beaten yourself up about it yet?
Over the festive season I read an interesting facebook post by Dr Wayne Dyer. He suggested forgetting about resolutions and thinking more about living in the moment. While it’s a good idea to have a plan and goals for the year so many people worry and agonise over how they’ve made a mistake with their difficult resolution, which is currently pretty alien to their lifestyle.
Slipping up doesn’t make you a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to write it off for the whole year. It just means you’re a human and at that particular point in time your choice was not in line with a new habit you want to form.
New habits are made by practice; would you be so harsh on a child learning to walk or trying to master a new skill? No, you would say, ‘that’s OK, let’s give it another go.’ Each moment is a new moment, a chance for a new start. Treat yourself kindly, and instead of being so harsh on yourself, draw a mental line, accept you’ve made a mistake, take a deep breath and start again.
Forget the last few minutes/half hour/hour and focus – are you OK in THIS precise moment? If not, why not? If it’s because of something that happened half hour ago you’re still not living in the present – try again. Breathe, focus and think about THIS moment. If you’re not on fire, you’re not in the middle of a medical emergency or you’re not in the process of falling off a cliff, the chances are at this exact moment things are possibly not as bad as you think. Check in with your body, lose the annoyance/anger/frustration with yourself and give yourself a bit of love – you’ve made a mistake, and you know, it’s OK.
So this year, why not make it a goal to be a bit kinder to yourself? Your resolutions are not set in stone, you can move the goalposts, adapt, restart or lose the ones that really aren’t working for you. You are an adult in control of your life. Make little steps, celebrate those little steps and make more….then at the end of the year you can look back and discover how far those restarts, little steps and self-love actually got you.
Louise is an holistic therapist who owns Therapy Centre, Bristol BS14 9HB, a clinic offering a range of holistic and beauty therapies. Louise offers reflexology, aromatherapy, holistic massage, Indian head massage, reiki, baby massage and story massage. She is a mum of two boys and when she is not working she enjoys getting outdoors with her family.