Every day is a New Year - My News Paper article
Make Every Day a New Year
Sara Leger
(Cherry Bomb Garage Gym)
This is going to be hard to hear because I’m about to give it to you straight. Ready?! Setting New Year’s resolutions is not going to make you happier, healthier or more successful than you are right now.
We think, Ah, the New Year, a magical time. A time for resolutions. This time, we’ll do better. This time, we’ll get it right. And so we wait for the big day, the day when everything changes. The ball drops, people scream and shout, and we get another chance to start over and get it right. I’m all for starting over. I’m all for changing what you don’t like in your life. The thing I have a problem with is the waiting.
Why wait?
Every Day is a New Year. This day, the one you’re having now, starts a cycle of 365 days. Whatever it is you need to change, whatever it is you want to grow into, the time is now, not January 1st.
I don’t have a beef with the new year’s resolution itself. I think setting goals is a fantastic idea. Goals give you a purpose. Goals guide your work. Goals mark milestones in your progress but the New Year has a peculiar way of messing with our minds.
The idea that something magical happens on New Year’s Day that would allow someone with no motivation, plan, or tools to suddenly be able to perform an about face and achieve a previously unattainable goal is a bit well .. crazy.
Think about it.
People become convinced that they can achieve difficult goals without the plan and accountability to actually fulfil it. And! That all those patterns and habits from the year before will fade away, because that was last year. And if you’re one of those folks who continues putting down booze and pie on December 21st in anticipation of changing your diet on January 1st, then you don’t really plan on changing your diet on January 1st. No…not really…not deep down where it counts.
The point is that setting goals and working to achieve them is a messy and difficult process.
While I enthusiastically encourage you to set and achieve goals, you can’t condense that process into a neat package with a bow that you unwrap at midnight with a glass of champagne and a kiss. It’s just not realistic, and achieving goals requires real things: planning, sacrifice, effort, dedication and acceptance.
There’s nothing magical about midnight anymore than there is about New Year’s Day. If you’re going to make a change, the only time you can do that is now. Now is the only time that exists. The only time you have is this now, right here.
You want to lose weight? You want to be nicer? Great! Start now.
This is where the rubber meets the road. It’s the place where resolutions become action and change starts to happen. The lights can go on in your own personal Times Square anytime you want them to. Forgive yourself for yesterday. Celebrate today and stop waiting until next year. Every single day you have the opportunity to become the person you want to be.
So if the New Year isn’t the magical answer to all your previous woes, then it’s not really the holiday that makes us better, but what we do with the holiday. Let’s not confuse the date for the event. If something’s going to change in your life, it’s going to change because you’ve stopped on that day and asked: Who do I want to be?
Be the change you want to be.
Bottom line is that we’re really after results— that’s why folks join Cherry Bomb Garage Gym - for the satisfaction of accomplishing things that we haven’t accomplished before. And the only way to do that is by moving past the mentality of traditional resolutions. After all, the best New Year’s Resolutions in the world aren’t going to do you any good if you can’t make a solid commitment. Today is that day.
Say it. This is my day, and it’s time to do something about it!
Congratulations. You’re celebrating the new year. Which is today, and will always be today.
Be you. Be strong. Be awesome!
Sara Leger (coach Mighty Mouse)
www.cherrybombgaragegym
Lancaster ON.
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