Almost six weeks ago, the world celebrated an old year ending and a new year beginning. We’ve done this a few times in the past, too. Not much, though. Only every year. We wouldn’t want to get too crazy with it.
One of the things we do about the same time is make New Year’s Resolutions. I’m sure you’ve heard of these. They’re these impossible vows we make to ourselves to “do better” at whatever it is we think we need to work on in the coming year. Whether that’s losing weight or cleaning out the fridge more regularly, these are things we think we need to do to be “good people.” They’re rarely things we really want to do.
After the first of January, gyms fill up with out-of-shape Good Doobies tackling their workout goals, going all-out such that they burn out in a few short weeks, or even days.
People buy things to use while working out. Clothing, fancy watches, gym memberships, exercise equipment. And then in a few short weeks, it sits there, clothing not getting worn, fancy watch worn only to impress people, gym memberships languishing, exercise equipment gathering dust or acting as a clothes horse. Money wasted.
But it’s not the goals that are the problem, here. It’s the execution and the pinning all the hopes of success on the fact that it’s a new year, and so this is now our chance to be the person we always wanted to be!
Instead, what we should be doing is figuring out what our goals are for our lives, and working backwards to figure out how to get there.
Take diet and exercise, for example. Most people want to lose weight. If they have a weight goal, it’s a certain number of pounds. They have been told that you need to exercise to lose weight. They’ve also heard widely varied ideas about what they should eat or not eat to lose weight. So they buy gym memberships and exercise equipment and they throw out all the food that isn’t supposed to be on their plates for whatever diet has caught their eye, but they don’t plan for their success.
People make vague work goals, too. They want to get such-and-such for a raise, but they don’t plan how to get that raise. They just vaguely say, “I’ll work harder.” Well, what does “working harder” look like?
I don’t pretend to have it all worked out. I, like most of the rest of the world, have goals, too. But I stopped making new year’s resolutions decades ago. I realized a long time ago that they just didn’t work for me. I would make a resolution, and would have no plan to back it up, and so when I inevitably failed, I would feel so much worse about myself. So I stopped. I didn’t have a replacement. I just didn’t make resolutions any longer.
Now, like the rest of the world, I like to start new things at a “beginning point,” too. If I start something new, I’m likely to start on a Monday. If that Monday is the first day of a month, too, then that’s awesome, but I don’t care so much about whether the Monday is the first day of the month. It’s even cooler if that Monday is also the first day of the year, but again, that’s not the point of a Monday on which I start something new. The point is that it’s the start of something new.
This year, Monday was all three things. It was the start of the week, the month, and the year. And it was also a reset of my expectations of myself.
I spent most of 2023 running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to put out fires as they popped up, and boy, were there some doozies. Last year was incredibly stressful in a way that no other year has been, except maybe 2020. I got a membership to a gym with a pool in June, and was pretty good about swimming through the summer, but once fall hit, I fell off. Pun definitely intended.
I needed (and still need) to make a minimum number (55) of visits to the gym to make the membership “worth it,” as opposed to getting 10-visit passes, or paying the daily fee. I also want to start moving my body more. I love to swim, so that’s the most motivating way for me to move my body more.
I’m obese. I am very out of shape. I want to be able to play with my grandchild and not get worn out. I want to be around for a long time, so that maybe I can work through all my trauma and finally start having a life more worth living. I don’t want to let my partner down and I want to stop feeling stressed all. the. damn. time. I want to get my work done on time and I don’t want to have that last-minute frenzy of getting stuff together for the tax person as I do every year. I also want to start getting paid for work I do, rather than only working for my partner, who can’t pay me (and wouldn’t even if they could, because they don’t think they should have to).
So, I made a deal with myself. The deal is that I get up every week day and go to the gym. That’s it. I don’t have to swim. I don’t have to exercise. I just have to go.
Now, I started the year off still recovering from a pretty serious illness, so I only made it to the gym 2 times the first week of January, but I started going back on 29 January, and I’ve made it there every week day, since.
On the 29th, I just took a shower, and on the next two days I just got in the hot tub, but I’ve swum or walked every other week day since then.
I have not wanted to get up and go most of those days, but I’ve also not wanted to disappoint myself, so I’ve gotten up and gone, anyway. I’ve laid in bed thinking of the two ways the day could go. Either I could stay in bed and toss and turn and feel guilty for not going to the gym, and then my day would spiral downward because I’d start the day off having failed to do something I planned to do, or I could get my ass out of bed, put my swimsuit on, and go, and then my day could spiral upward. I could start the day being proud of the fact that I went to the gym, regardless of whether I got any actual exercise.
And it’s 100% okay not to swim or walk or do anything, so long as I go and swipe my card. I can turn right around and walk out the door, or I can go and take a nice, hot shower, or I can get in the pool and do some laps. (See above about the two hot tub days.)
But I went! And because I went, I started the day feeling proud of myself for one little thing. And this little thing has helped me do other little things which have in turn helped me do more little things, until I’m now almost back into a sustainable good routine, as opposed to being mired in immovability.
Has this made my life magically all better? No, of course not. Even though I was getting up and going to the gym, I was still spending a lot of time sucked into YouTube and frankly, still recovering mentally from last year. But this week, things have started to be a bit more organized. I’ve managed to have productive days most of this week, after removing YouTube from my phone so as to remove temptation. I don’t watch YouTube on my work computer, except for work-related things, so it’s not until I get on my personal laptop that I can indulge, and I’m finding that it’s now easier to put off going to YouTube to mindlessly scroll.
I still have things I want to add to my routine, but I’m not going to stress about them. My goal for this year is to be more kind to myself. If I lose my routine, I’ll just restart it gently. I won’t beat up on myself for being a “failure.”
So far, 2024, while it’s had its not-so-nice surprises already, has been a good year. I’m hoping that by allowing myself to restart gently, without thinking that I’m a failure, I will start to be less stressed.
And moving my body also helps me be less stressed.