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You know how it is. You were going to use this month to cut-out your partner from your diet, restore your intimacy with carbs, slim down your bank account, drop your client base and double your dress size. Go from fit to even fatter? Or something like that.
I'm sure you have a whole heap of expectations, goals, targets and resolutions that are already beginning to do a Mike Tyson number on your psyche.
Did you realise it would be so painful?
Sorry I can't help. I'm not the coach to tell you that you can shave rashers off your thighs, give up your toxic dependencies or turn your life around all in the most unforgiving month of the year.
I prefer a cashmere hug than a whip to get results.
When we rely on our harsh inner critic plus willpower to get things done it often results in a crash and burn of our good intentions. Willpower isn't sustainable. This is why there is a whole iron jungle of exercise bikes and tummy toners being used as clothes horses across the country. I prefer "want to" power.
And when we do throw in the towel, tired, exhausted and demoralised, we start the slow spiral into self-recriminating gloom and doom. Another discarded dream destined for the recycling box of the soul.
You may already know from the past that anything worth aiming for does take time, often compassion, more than a bit of struggle and a genuine desire to commit to what you want because you really want it.
But sometimes our goals have built in get-out clauses that set up up for failure.
For example there's little point aiming for success when secretly you are worried what other people will think of you when you are thinner, richer or more popular. What if you get your goal and can't maintain your target? What if you deep down feel you aren't good enough? Are you sure your goals don't have a secret caveat? Often we use harsh tactics, critical inner dialogues and extreme programmes and deprivations to motivate us. All of which prove to be self-defeating strategies to change and betterment. Who wants to use pain and punishment as their drivers? What is needed is patience, gentleness, a clear and realistic view of what can be achieved and by when and a compelling desire to get what is best for you. Imagine that? Gain without pain. A coach helps enormously too! 
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