It’s the time of year again. Everywhere you look, you see tips and tricks on how to enter the new year with a bang. How to create the 2.0 version of yourself. How to be better, set bigger goals, and make significant change with New Year’s resolutions.
Honestly, just typing that stresses me out. Why are we so focused on being better? It’s as if current you isn’t enough. Why are we so focused on doing more when you’re already overwhelmed by everything currently on your plate? Instead of setting New Year’s resolutions, I think we should cut out the noise and pressures and focus on YOU. Ask yourself:
- What do YOU actually want? (Not what society, friends, or family want.)
- What would make YOU feel amazing? (Not what would make other people happy.)
- What would bring joy and happiness to YOUR life? (Not other people’s lives at the expense of your own.)
While it may seem selfish, focusing on you is actually the most selfless thing you can do. Here’s the deal—when you focus on you first and living your most authentic life, it will improve the lives of everybody around you.
Are you fun to be around when you’re stressed? Focus on your own stress response and notice the joy that permeates your home. Do you want to give back to others when you feel run down and overwhelmed? Focus on your own recovery and notice how much love you have to pour into other people’s lives.
Bottom line, take the time, energy, and money to invest in yourself and give other people the best gift you could give them—you in the purest and happiest form. Sometimes this means you need to take a step back to move forward. Or maybe you don’t set a rigid New Year’s resolution.
Think about what it’s like to open a drawer that’s jammed shut. You pull and pull and pull and nothing happens, except that you become more and more frustrated with each yank on the drawer. Then, you close the drawer gently, pull again, and voila, it opens! This is like our lives when we try and try and try. We put so much pressure on ourselves to succeed. All that trying is like yanking on the jammed drawer. Once we take a step back, stop making things so hard and allow things to be easy, success starts to flow.
If the drawer analogy isn’t enough to convince you, let me share something personal. I’ve lived this the past few months. I kept doing and doing and doing. Everything I had on my plate was really fun and amazing, but I burned myself out. I wasn’t enjoying my workouts anymore because I was so tired. I’d end the workout more disappointed than when I started, and I typically LOVE my workout time.
I was wishing I could stay at home instead of coming into the office, which really was a red flag for me because I LOVE clinic days working with my clients. I was hoping my son would take a really long nap because I had so much focused work to get done, and I typically LOVE snuggles with my little boy.
So what did I do? I let go of pressure on myself to do all the things. I stopped making it hard, gave myself the space to rest, made time for self care and let things be easy. Letting things be easy is just a decision that we make. So I decided to do things differently. I woke up each morning and did whatever workout felt good to me. If I wanted to run, I ran. When lifting felt more my speed, I lifted. If yoga sounded relaxing, I practiced yoga. And most importantly, if I wanted to sleep, I slept.
I learned to say “no” or “not now” to things so that I didn’t overextend myself. I created space to rest and recover And guess what? Everything in my life seemed to fall back into place. It was a beautiful thing.
My advice instead of making New Year’s resolutions: Don’t resolve to do things. Rather, focus on the happy. If you notice, I didn’t make a sweeping resolution in my life. I didn’t try to make a drastic change and set high expectations for myself. Instead, I slowed down and did what felt good. What made me happy. What brought me joy.
As we kick off 2022, I invite you to rethink the way you approach the new year. Do you need to do more or is it time to take some things off your to-do list? Do you need to make a drastic change or can you focus on the things that make you happy? Can you let things be easy? Can you let go of high expectations and being so hard on yourself? Simply focusing on what makes you happy might be just the thing you need to live the life of your dreams.
If making time for your body to move well is on your radar this year, Contact us today to learn more about what we can do to help you feel rested and ready to take on 2022.
