Here we are again. It is coming to the end of another year. We made it, maybe barely for some of us, but yay! 2016 awaits us!

What does a new year mean to you? For some of us it is just another date on the calendar. Maybe we get some time off from work, or we see our families, but other than that it has no special significance. For others of us there is a line that gets drawn on December 31st and when we step over it, to January 1st, we get to start again. I am one of those thinkers. I like new beginnings: second (third? fifth? hundredth?) chances.

Does it seem wrong or bad to continually look to the beginning of the year as the time to begin again: whatever that thing is you somehow did not do the previous year? Is it foolish to think that THIS will be the year we finally lose the weight or join the gym and really do it, or get into cycling or.....?

I don't think it is foolish in the slightest. There has to be a point at which we find the will to act. It is there, inside every one of us. There is something that triggers us, and then we begin to think about it. Eventually we do the research. And then finally, one day we step out the door into a new world: a world of action, not just dreams and plans.

When this happens is different for each of us. For some January 1st is the new beginning. They set their goals and begin. But if the division between last year and this one does not resonate then it probably isn't wise to choose this time to make change, even if everyone around you is hopping on the bandwagon. Because if your heart is not in it, and you're doing it simply because that date is there taunting you, then I suspect you might not get the results you're dreaming about.

The last time I decided to join Weight Watchers, which was the one that stuck, thank goodness, was in February 2001, not in January, despite always using that time frame in the past. I thought about it in December: so much so that my Christmas dinner plate was heaping, as though it was the "Last Supper". I assumed I would join the first week in January, but it came and went without much change. As did the following three weeks, where I contemplated, hemmed and hawed, but continued stuffing my gob. At the beginning of February I got a rude slap in the face: the result of stepping on a scale, which I had avoided for months. That was the moment that turned my life around. I agreed to join my neighbor who had been urging me to come with her, and almost fifteen years later here I am.

So when January 1st comes around, hallelujah if it grabs you by the arm and pulls you into action. Run with it. But if your motivation is still not quite where it needs to be to undertake the steps needed to get healthier, don't beat yourself up, and/or attempt to charge forward without that key element. Instead trust that it will find you, and do what you need to do to make that happen. Maybe that will be going out with friends who are in better shape, seeking counseling, reading something inspirational, or like me, you could step on the scale. Whatever works.

 

Thank you my dear friends, for following this blog and the newsletter. I wish you all a healthy, exciting, loving and joyful 2016!