A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

As the sun starts to pay us a visit for a few days at a time, and we have a glimpse of what the summer has to offer I am reminded of how wonderful London is. And it is at its most wonderful at dawn. The start of a new day. With spring, greenery, birdsong we feel positive. We feel invigorated. I would go so far as to say that witnessing the dawn on a perfect day makes us feel like there’s really nothing we can’t do.

Which has me wondering, if this is a seemingly positive time of year emotionally, why do we wait until it’s cold to kick-start our resolution. And that’s an interesting word for it - resolution - so, humour me, and let’s play a game of word association. When I say “resolution” what’s the betting you say “New Year”? Well, unless you’re one of my legal friends, in which case you’ll probably say “dispute”...

Why are we, as a society, so obsessed with New Year’s Resolutions? According to U.S. News (2017), statistically only 20% of us actually manage to keep them past mid-Feb. And, moreover, only 9.2% actually felt like we’d achieved what we set out to. So what does that say about the potential for a New Year’s Resolution to develop into a successful long term change? The statistics vary on the type of resolution you are making - some, after all, are more out of reach than others - but I, for one, have mostly not even made it to committing. I’ve said to myself that I’d do it - made an informal resolution, if you will - but January magically rolls around and we seem suddenly caught off guard by it and then it’s too late: shame. January is a time for renewal, apparently, but it’s also the month of darkness. Of blue Monday (said to be the most depressing day of the year). Of getting by for longer before pay day. A lot of breakups happen in the December/January period. It’s when struggling businesses face the cold light of day that Christmas didn’t solve their problems and off they drift into administration - if you’ve never noticed this you will now. It’s also the time when we beat ourselves up for all the roast potatoes, mince pies, chocolate and nibbles we’ve consumed and lament our poor choices. It’s a bleak month all round so is this really the month to make a big change? Is this the month you really should be going out to buy a gym membership? Yeah ok this is the month we may feel most rubbish about ourselves and we may try to mitigate this by promising to ourselves we will be better and change for the positive. Realistically, will we? Are we papering over cracks and just massaging our own self-worth to try to convince ourselves we’ve got it in hand. Are we doing the equivalent of panic-buying for our mental health and wellness? I’d like to suggest a new trend: the mid-year resolution. It has a lot of positives. The good news is you don’t have to start it on NYD and feel either guilty or resentful about that big wedding with the great menu if you’re n a health kick. You pick when. And this perhaps takes a little more motivation and willpower but, trust me, you will feel a lot more confidence if you can push yourself to start something at a time that suits you rather than along with the rest of the world, temporarily, before it all fizzles out. Feeling like a failure is not a big confidence-booster and your chances are much higher if you make a change on your own terms. For one, you’re not running a race against everyone else. In fact nobody even needs to know you’ve made any kind of resolution so, while you may say there’s no accountability, you don’t feel like it has to be something mammoth. It might be a very small change for the better. I have taken it upon myself, in a period of reduced self-esteem, to make a change. It’s not working for me to just keep bashing myself for not committing to changing, and it’s time to put my money and my willpower where my mouth is. I have joined a fitness place. It’s May. We’re 5 months into 2018 and I don’t care. I’m out of the woods of dark and miserable evenings when you just want to get home and hibernate. I’m into the milder days, the lighter evenings, the lead up to a social summer. And yes that’s a motivator: I’m MoH for my friend in July and, hello vanity, I want to look nice in a dress for all the photos so I can frame one and not look at it and think yuck. I don’t want to mentally analyse what I’d photoshop given the chance. I don’t want to keep critiquing the bits of me I don’t like. The AA prayer is applicable to the self-critical people out there - grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change etc. Time to identify where we can. Time to stop saying “oh if only” and be proactive. Stop thinking you have to wait until January to make yourself do it. Invest in yourself. Now, before you criticise, I must stress this is NOT about being “beach body ready” (though I personally think it’s ok to think about this as long as you do so healthily for your own image and the perception of others - that beach body is not one size fits all). It could be a mid-year resolution to spend more time outside, to drink less, to cut caffeine, to quit smoking, to launch that project you’ve been talking about, to walk to work more, to make the most of your weekends, to save more. IT can be anything and I think April/May is a good time. Maybe we should call it a New Financial Year’s Resolution but I’d rather not because I reject the idea of an ultimatum and a date. Some people need a date to force themselves to start it but set this yourself. Say right, ok, on 1 May things will be changing. The closer you get to January, the more tempting it is to put it off. Sunshine is widely accepted to be a good motivator for positive change. Not that it’s counter-intuitive to make changes in the dark times, because actually that’s when you need to think positive but, by the nature of change, you’re partly saying you;be been doing it wrong and it’s rooted in criticism. Be kind to yourself in January. maybe you felt lonely at Christmas, don’t rebound from the winter season with a vow to date more. Take some tie to settle into the new year and then decide. You can make a positive change any time you like, and that positive change can be incremental. You don’t have to be outlandish and go cold turkey, you could say you’ll gradually transition to a different way of doing things. Start it. Do it. Make that change you keep putting off for next year. But do it when it fits for you because, if you do so, it’s much more likely you’ll keep it up. More on my mid-year resolutions another time.

None of us can be sure what tomorrow brings but what we can be sure of is that each day the sun will start to rise. It will creep above the horizon and, in London at least, slowly stretch and yawn and begin another day. Each day, for a brief time, we can choose to make this a new day, or we can watch the sun rise above the buildings and say “hey, maybe tomorrow”. And we can keep doing that until January 1st, and probably watch the skyline glow orange then too. 

Each journey starts with a single step and yours is no exception. Maybe it won’t be the equivalent of 1000 miles, or maybe it will be. Maybe it will feel just like that to you. You decide which journey to embark on next; let nobody tell you yours is too small or too great.

So, when the sun rises tomorrow, bathing the skyline in optimism, what kind of tomorrow will you choose yours to be? 

#wellness #health #fitness #positivechange #dawn #resolutions #spring #midyear #youdoyou #feel