Top blogger Tara Cain on making and breaking New Year’s Resolutions
Do you make New Year’s resolutions every year? Do you keep them? Any of them? Do you beat yourself up for breaking most of them before January is even over? Well I do and I’m fed up of it.
I read recently that of those people who make New Year Resolutions, 75% of them give up after just one week. Which basically means you start your year on a negative footing. I’m guessing my mother did this and has inadvertently passed it on to me.
I don’t want to be a failure before the first month is even through, so I have a plan of action. A plan for success. A plan to make sure my children see making resolutions as a positive thing.
I’m not going to set any goals during Christmas. Because that is just doomed! While enjoying the high of the festive season it’s easy to promise to lose weight, be healthier, be a better parent/partner/person, spend more time with your children. “I’ll just get Christmas out of the way,” you say to yourself. But then the decorations come down, you go back to work and real life kicks back in and suddenly it’s much harder to motivate yourself.
I may even wait until February to set my goals. Because who says you have to start in January? If starting in February means I’ve got more chance of success then I’m going for it. And let’s face it, I’ve got a whole YEAR to achieve them.
I’m going to be realistic. Because, much as I would love to get back to my pre-baby weight and be able to leap around in a step class with gay abandon again, I know it’s not going to happen over night. I can wait. Baby steps. But these are minor setbacks. Chalk it up to experience, tuck it under your belt, and move on.
I’m going to be keep going. I know there will be bumps in the road. That I’ll shout at the kids and feel rubbish for it, or I’ll binge on chocolate and feel sick or I’ll procrastinate.
Finally I should tell you that I have one resolution that will absolutely be number one on my list. Right there at the very top in black ink.
Enjoy every minute of being a mother; the good times and the bad, because one day you blink and your ‘baby’ is 9 and you wonder where the heck all those other New Years went!
