Every year, somewhere around October I kind of give up. Ok. I’m not going to accomplish these goals this year. Time to just wait till January and then we’ll have a fresh start, “New Year, New Me!” I’ll start exercising again in January. I’ll work on our family eating habits in January. I’ll start thinking about new goals and projects in January.
Now part of that is just practical. The holidays start revving up in November and it’s a lot of work to uphold all the traditions and make sure everything happens that we want to happen. On top of that, this last year our entire fall was devoted to working on transitioning our foster daughter back home and then she left a week into December. So it was definitely not the time to be trying to introduce more vegetables to the kids or start a new exercise regime. January was the first month when everything was going to settle down and get into a new normal routine.
Every year I hit January with this weight of expectations of all the miraculous things I’m going to start doing, starting now. And every January I get frozen into immobility. Cause it’s the same me in January that was hanging around eating desserts in December. Somehow, I didn’t magically change into this new person as soon as the calendar flipped to the new year. If I want to change things about myself, acquire more discipline in some areas, acquire better habits etc, it means I’m going to have to kill off the old Me. It’s going to be painful. It’s going to mean doing things I don’t particularly like or enjoy with the hope that one day I will like and enjoy it. I have great memories of enjoying going for a run. But the current me does not think that sounds fun at all.
And so I sit here and I think, it’s time to go take a walk. Uggh. You need to make yourself some vegetables for lunch. Uggh. You need to start doing some organizing cleaning in your house. Uggh. You need to seriously start working on this new project. Uggh.
I don’t want to.
And now comes the really hard part of January. Making yourself do things you don’t want to do because you know it’s good for you.
I’m going to be realistic. It’s not all going to happen today. But maybe I can make at least one good choice today. Do at least one hard thing today. Give this ball a push and slowly get it moving.
Yeah, the beginning of January is about facing reality, this is who I am and if I want change I’m going to have to be uncomfortable for a while. But it’s also a time of hope. Maybe I can do hard things after all. I’m going to at least try.
Life With Esther 