NewYears Reso....what???

I’ve only ever made one New Years Resolution that I have managed to stick to. In the 2009 New Year I made the Resolution to never again make a New Years Resolution. 3 ½ months later I decided to move to South Africa to marry Hubby Dearest and haven’t made a resolution since then!

That was a year of big choices, big beginnings, big endings, and a lot of happiness. I let things go where life wanted them to go!

I think it is a great idea to want to start each new year fresh. We want to clean out our emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical closets of all the dust and unused clutter.

It is a natural thing to want to enter a new phase in our lives with focus, goals, and determination. But there is something about the New Years Resolution that just seems....well....unrealistic.

Too often, the goals that people are setting for themselves are setting them up for failure. From the word go the expectations are too high. We’re always trying to outdo each other and ourselves. We are failing to prepare and preparing to fail.

Even as I type this, I think to myself about my new fitness plans that begin on the 31^st of December. I try as I might to justify this by saying that these plans would have been planned to begin at any time of the year as soon as it was 2 weeks after LJ was born.

My goals that I’ve set for 2013 are not based on some in ground need to kick start my year. The birth of my son just happened to fall in line with the new year. My goals are an accumulation of small stepping stones towards one major goal that has been put off for a while now (I just keep getting pregnant lol.....dang husband! ;-])

Yet, my goals are something that are personal to me and have very little to do with the beginning of a new year. It is more about the beginning of a new chapter in my life!

As I face into 2013, I think about where I sit.

I am now a mother of two! Two boys to really grasp it! ;-)

I’m a wife who is still adjusting to being married to a wonderful man of a different culture! (You can’t just drop 20 years of your life and culture in 4 years!)

I am an inexperienced data clerk who has been blessed with a wonderful job and who is learning more and more each day at work!

I am a friend to 3 lovely newlywed ladies (I have other friends but this is our ‘fearsome foursome!’) and am the “experienced” one when it comes to marriage and children although I am the youngest in the group by more than 5 years!

And I am a woman who is in love with herself and wants to take the best care of herself possible mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.

I think to start my year off with a resolution of what is going to happen that year or what I’m going to do is unrealistic. We cannot predict where life will take us.

I prefer a down to earth approach. Set for yourself realistic goals that are not grounded in the idea of a ‘new year’ but are sought out and brought up from somewhere deep within yourself. Your goals for yourself and your life need to be focused and planted in who you are.

It doesn’t help you set a New Years Resolution to loose weight if you are happy with who you are!

You can set a goal to get healthier though because if you love who you are then you’ll want to take care of who you are! Set goals that are focused on what your body needs!

Whether you want to get more centered in God, get yourself moving physically, or fight off a bought of depression do it for you! To make yourself all that you can be. Do it because you love you!

Keep your goals simple and focused.

Saying you’re going to lose 15kg in 2013 is a sure fire way to fail. Saying you’re going to lose 15kg by June 1, 2013 gives you a focus point.

Saying you’re going to start going to gym because you want to find a boyfriend is ridiculous. But chosing to start working out because you want to take care of your beautiful body and feel better mentally is much more real!

I’m no expert but a new year isn’t near as much motivation as a better me! I love myself and so should you (well yourself....no me too....you should love me too!!!!)

Have a HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEARS!

Shana..