Time for Change

If New Year Resolutions don’t work for you (and honestly, they don’t work for many people), it isn’t because your resolutions is at fault – it’s all about timing.

And timing, before you even get started, includes who you tell and when you tell them.  Frankly, I’ve often found that even the closest of friends and family can be less than supportive when I really need it.  It’s not that they mean to – it’s simply that being who we are right now is helping them to stay cosy in their own comfort zone.   After all, if we look for another job that might just mean changing some part of our relationship – or just the idea that something might change – is enough for those closest to us to start saying how much we don’t need to change.  For years, my husband used to say how much he loved me just the way I was, so why bother trying to lose any weight and avoid all the health issues that are bound to happen eventually.

So, do we really need to announce our plans before we get started?  Are we inviting that awful comment “well, you tried….”

The truth is we all feel much more confident when can announce a job promotion, a dropped dress size or saying we’ve booked that far away holiday we’ve always wanted.  We haven’t had to justify everything we had to do to get to the end.  We simply feel great in saying that we did it.

And, if we haven’t done it – well, who’s to know?  We know that it is something we want to do, but the time isn’t right now.  We don’t have to listen to other people reminding us that we’ve failed again.  Failing to quit smoking or jogging a mile a day does not define who we are.  Don’t allow others to identify us by failure.  We create our own inner strength from knowing that we can deal with our own disappointments and move on.  We need to tell ourselves that we haven’t failed – we’ve learned that the time wasn’t right.  We have learned how not to do something or discovered that it wasn’t something we really wanted (yes, we really can change our mind about something!)

Learn to recognise what doesn’t work, then move on.  When something works, remember what it is and keep doing it!