Resolutions – just don’t do it!

Starting a new Year can sometimes feel a wee bit overwhelming. Especially if you still have some baggage to carry over when the clock strikes 12. With the strike of the cuckoo clock you whisper to yourself, this year I am going to be better at… or achieve this… or make that happen. I’m going to make better choices. Practise better patience or work on my parenting skills. Whatever it may be. We jot down in our minds a “How to become a better ME” bucket list every year.

I know that sometimes one would like to wipe the slate clean or wave a magic wand to start fresh and this is where, I feel, resolutions come in, to play havoc with our minds. Forever the ruler to measure our failures or achievements.

The first week of January you are on the top of your game. I speak from experience. You follow through on every promise you made to yourself. Gosh people want to actually be your friend all of a sudden because you turned out from grumpy and frumpy to toned up, make-up wearing GHD curls and high heels.

Have you ever stepped on a stone when in high heels walking downhill? Your queen stance will soon become a knee buckling, ankle knocking juggle to stay afloat, while you swiftly try to gain momentum and not fall while you pray feverishly that no one has seen your epic fail of “Saturday Night Fever” moves.

That is the exact minute I chuck the heels, tie up the GHD curls and wipe the makeup off my face and mumble to myself,  chuck the resolutions this year. It’s better to start next year.

I hope you are laughing, as I am, at that visual image, because this has happened several times.

Why do we put ourselves through this every year? Does it not make us feel like a bigger failure as we set the bar so high for our achievements? We have this long list of things to correct and fix in the first week of January and for the rest of the 334 days of the year, you climb into this persona of the perfect person you imagined you always needed to be.

The minute we fail or not get something right we either fall in utter despair or we will have a monologue berating ourselves.

You might even be the person taking it in your stride and with a shrug of your shoulders dust off your feet and move on. The ultimate gift would be if we had a magic wand to magically fix it all at once.

If we look at life as a piece of pie. The goodness of it is in each bite. If we cram everything in one bite we will definitely end up with disappointment. The joy of eating that pie would soon be lost and you would need to move to the next thing to find your happiness in.

If we eat bite for bite. Taking our time. Really chew and enjoy the little bits of flavor jumping on our taste buds. Won’t it extend the joy factor?  Won’t it be easier on your body to digest small amounts and not feel overwhelmed?

I can transfer this to the same steps in life. We take out the mirror and compare and measure ourselves to someone down the road who portrays the image of perfection itself with all their ducks in a row. The perfect family, the perfect body, the perfect job and the perfect house and car.

Instead of looking at the now moment right in front of you, look around you. Taking your eyes off the prize of what is in store for you right that second. Or the bar you set for yourself seems so high that giving up is better than trying to lower it to reach it easier.

I want to leave you with this little bit of advice, that I am taking to heart and action as well.  Perhaps our new resolution should be to let go of life’s measuring stick and the long list of must have or must do’s and grab each current moment and see it for the treasure that it is…for fear that one day we will look behind us and not recognize our achievements and moments of peace and happiness.

Carpe Diem – Seize the day!