Yes, it’s December 11th, that time of year when you start afresh with your resolutions, creating a “new you” that will endure long into the future.
OK, I know that today isn’t the day traditionally set aside for a new start but while I am a big fan of positive change, New Year resolutions leave me absolutely cold.
I don’t know if it happens to other therapists but I tend to be inundated with new client enquiries in January as people resolve finally to get their lives into some sort of shape.
So in order to get ahead of the game I had a think about how I’ve made changes in my life and how many of those that have lasted (none) took place on January 1st.
Back in March 2014, I decided, for no reason other than giving myself something to write about, to go thirty days without eating sugar. It had two long-term impacts.
First, it helped me to realise that choice is the most powerful foundation of change. If you do something because you want to and not because you feel you ought to it sticks much better.
Second, it started me thinking much more deeply and meaningfully about how and what I eat.
I didn’t know that would happen, it just did. When you aren’t so dogmatic about outcomes you leave room for pleasant and surprising ones to emerge.
On 3rd July 2017, I took a short course on writing blog posts which connected me to an editor I subsequently worked with for a couple of years.
I learned so much in that time but the real kicker was when, at the beginning of our relationship, she told me that for a flat fee she would edit everything I wrote for a month.
In August 2017 I wrote 1000 words every single day just to pig-headedly get as much value as I possibly could from what seemed to me a rather generous offer.
Most of what I wrote was garbage but I was learning and, perhaps most importantly of all, getting into the rhythm and discipline of writing every single day, something I have done ever since and the basis of being able to churn out pieces with monotonous regularity (sorry).
When I got a dog (in September, not January) I did so in order to have something fluffy that would cuddle me on the sofa. As it turned out we managed to select what may be the world’s only aloof labrador.
What she did give me though was a reason to get up early and go out walking each day, rain or shine.
Now, I walk 50km every week and, as my body ages, that can’t be anything but helpful.
Change happens not through a forced action anchored to time but through choice and modest expectation that often then grows into something more wonderful and rewarding than we ever expected.
For as many changes I’ve made that have stuck and had a positive impact on my life there is twice that number that have fallen by the wayside.
I never did manage to develop a habit of going to the gym.
Those dumbells I bought during lockdown two are gathering dust in the spare bedroom rather than helping me to strengthen my core (they’re just so bloody heavy).
I’ve thought I would benefit greatly from yoga for around the past twenty years but have never once even ventured into a class.
I don’t meditate despite extolling its virtues to others (although maybe dog walking counts when they aren’t rolling in fox shit).
I’m also delinquent in my vegetable growing after the enthusiasm and excitement of planting the seeds in the first place has passed.
I could berate myself for all of these missed opportunities but I feel much better when I don’t and that comes from trying to be more self-accepting.
Self-acceptance is a life’s work and has been developed through years of therapy and often painful self-reflection but I didn’t wait until January 1st to start that either.
Leave a Reply