Editing New Years Resolutions Another One Bites the Dust

It's February, the month of romantic love, the weather-related predictions of groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, and the ritual abandonment of most of our New Year's resolutions. We tried-oh, how we tried. We signed up for new gym memberships. We checked out works of Great Literature from the library. We purged our pantry of simple carbs and stocked up on wheat grass, tempeh, and kale. And yet here many of us are, a month later: still flabby, ill-read, and guiltily filching our kids Ritz Bitz snack packs and eating handfuls of Lucky Charms out from the box.<br /><br />What the heck happened?<br /><br />Now here's where many people turn to self-flagellation, just in case we don't already feel bad enough: I'm lazy. I have no self-control. And today that I've blown it, I might as well spend the rest of the year lying during intercourse, reading cheesy celebrity magazines and stuffing my face with Ho Ho's.<br /><br />No, back up. What the heck really happened?<br /><br />Most resolutions fail not because you're some spectacular brand of loser, but as the resolutions were doomed from the start. [https://www.instapaper.com/p/ho89winstead check here] to torpedo an answer is by choosing something you imagine you ought to do but have no actual passion for doing (example: read Siddhartha after obtaining the kids to bed). Another solution to tank a resolution is to pick one because another person thinks it's wise. And that means you join a gym because your BFF says it's where all the moms go after elementary school drop-off. Or your husband got a deal on a family membership. Or because [https://urlscan.io/result/a2c04960-3568-4297-bc73-ac05e8f8f3e6/ Using Your DSLR Camera] read somewhere that you're more likely to exercise if you've got big money riding on the offer.<br /><br />But mostly? Our resolutions bite the dust because although we have the best intentions in the world to create solid, positive changes inside our lives, we have no actual, well-articulated arrange for carrying these changes out, or for handling the inevitable stumbles on the road from here to there without quitting altogether. You want to lose weight, so we make an effort to deny ourselves our favorite foods without ever addressing our beliefs about food, our fear and loathing of our anatomies, or how much we may be relying on eating for comfort-so we're going to need to find alternative activities that bring similar joy.<br /><br />We want to be more fit, so we throw ourselves at an ambitious exercise plan without considering what types of movement feel good to your bodies or truly understanding that it will require slow, small, intentional turtle steps to obtain from your body we currently have to the body we want. You want to expand our minds, learn new things, and have fresh ideas to discuss. But instead of listening to our essential selves-what excites us to take into account? What articles, authors, blog writers, podcasts, even TV shows light us up?-we dutifully try to plow through some freshman lit reading list of the great classics.<br /><br />Change is good. But change is hard. That's because there's an actual part of our brains whose entire job it is to be sure we don't change anything. Call it the lizard brain, call it the amygdala, call it your social self: whatever you call it, it's the section of you that seeks to protect you by keeping you in your safe place. It likes everything in the same way it is. And it'll resist your attempts to do things differently near the top of its screechy little voice.<br /><br />Having a plan, getting support, understanding that there will be setbacks, and taking small, intentional steps toward your goals will quiet that voice, just enough that you may hear it for the frightened child it truly is. There, there, you can tell it. I've got this. You go off and play in the corner over there. Me, I'll make some really cool stuff happen. And then you'll. Really, truly. There's nothing magical about January 1. You have the rest of the year-heck, you've got the rest of your life-to become the person you always knew you will be.<br /><br />Laura McReynolds is a certified life coach focusing on "second acts," midlife course corrections, in the event that you will, designed to assist you to dig deep, dream big, and discover the life you're meant to live. Check out [https://atavi.com/share/w0vr4oz1pwxvi read more] and blog at