New Year, New You?
2020 is officially underway. Honestly, January has blown by. It’s about that time where New Year’s Resolutions may already be tapering off. How are you doing? If you feel like you are stuck or have already failed it’s ok! You are NOT alone! Maybe you need to reevaluate your resolution and refine it. It’s ok to change. People change, and that’s ok and good. Resolutions also change. They sometimes need to change to be attainable and fit your lifestyle. Is your resolution a reachable step or is it too much of a leap? Is it a goal or an acutal resolution?. So many resolutions become goals and sometimes these goals are almost impossible to reach in a year. Is your goal to be debt-free? Or is your resolution to make better financial choices to help you reach your first step of saving $1,000? Are you making life changes, or just simply checking off a list of what you think you should be doing? Think of you and you alone. Don’t compare to anyone else. It’s the time to think of just you for a second and evaluate or reevaluate your life. What is something that 2020 can give to you this year? What is the theme? Is it maybe to have more fun or have more experiences and less stuff? Is it to love God and people more than ever before and doing things in your life to achieve it? What is it for you? Maybe it’s not to just lose 20 pounds, but make healthier choices and small steps to achieve that. What does healthier choices look like to you? Less eating out? Working out 3 days a week? What is it for YOU? Maybe there are things you need to change in your life, but you are missing the steps to reach that and jumping too far ahead.
One of my resolutions is believing that I actually can and then doing it! Maybe this is a step in the direction you need to take too? Start now. Maybe it’s literally just laying out your work out clothes the night before, waking up and getting dressed and putting on your tennis shoes as the first step. Maybe next it’s just going to the gym and walking in and not putting pressure on yourself to do a crazy exercise routine. Maybe it’s stretching and moving for 5 minutes and then being finished for the day. Eventually, as you repeat this you will not be the person that wants to work out, but you will be the person that actually WORKS OUT. You will be able to say that you work out and believe it. It’s simply thinking about what that type of person who works out would do and doing it, and then eventually you are that person. It will take a little change, but then you will be the person you want to be, and soon reach the goals you have for yourself in the gym even. To begin to save money it may just be every time you don’t buy that coffee at Starbucks you put $5 in your savings. Or if you want to start writing that book or journaling you write one sentence a day, or if you want to be a reader you read one sentence a night and then watch tv. Whatever your resolution and goals are it’s taking one step in that direction, and not rushing to get there. This is when we tend to quit,
But, believe you’ve got this! You have! I swear. It’s just little daily habits that you can begin to build on. Think of it as overtime the healthy food that you are consuming will not help you to lose weight or feel better after a week or a month. It’s those habits building up over 6 months and a year where you will start seeing change.
From the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, he gives this example of an ice cube sitting on a table in your house. If it sits there in a house that is 28 degrees you won’t see any change. Move the temperature up a degree and this small change will produce no change, another degree you won’t see anything, another degree nothing, one more and no change, one more degree and you see it begin to start melting. Think of this with your resolutions and goals this year. Think of this today, and make those small changes, and build those good habits. Over time you will see and produce real change in your life and become the person you desire to truly be.
2020 is going to be the year! I feel it.