New Years Resolutions.... by Jessica Martinez on Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 6:58pm  

 

New Year Resolutions….

         Woke up this morning, and was reminded that once a year we as a society set these resolutions for ourselves at the beginning of the New Year as if that is the only time that we can make changes or improvements in our lives. We spend countless amount of minutes, hours and days leading up to the New Year and probably first month of the new year to reflect over our past year and years to come up with these resolutions. Our resolutions generally will be something that is an advantage to us, and to help us. Some resolutions that are typical among our society are: 1) to lose weight; 2) get out of debt; 3) to become more assertive; 4) to be happier and less stressed or 5) to quit smoking, cut back on drinking, or another harmful habit. However, why is it that we seem to dedicate the time to ourselves only at the beginning of the New Year?  

            The #1 goal that we should have for ourselves is “self-care". And, we can choose this resolution at any given time of the day, month or even year. There is no special time for when you say enough, is enough and today I am going to choose to take care of my life, and myself! At that point, things will fall into place. And, you won’t have to worry about not making that New Year’s resolution in the fear that you will fail, and then next year your resolution will be to keep your New Year’s resolution. That is the problem when we set goals because society says that the New Year is the best time to make those changes, “in with the new and out with the old". I do believe that some people benefit from using this idea at the beginning of the new year, however; when you choose to take care of yourself then everyday is the perfect time for change and improvement. Tackle the situation head on when you notice that whatever the issue that you want to change is becoming bothersome, hurtful or harmful, or no longer beneficial to you.           
         
          Self-care is where you take responsibility for yourself and your needs or desires. Self-care is not dieting, or losing weight, but eating healthy and making lifestyle changes that will promote health. Self-care is not about cutting yourself off from eating out with friends, or a day at the SPA with the girls, or a night out at the bar with the guys. Self care is recognizing that in order for us to be healthy we must treat ourselves to these luxuries. We must have healthy relationship with others. Self-care is learning how to listen to yourself and standing up for what you believe in even when you are only one standing there at least at that point you have been heard, by giving yourself your voice. It’s not about ‘assertiveness’ but finding your voice and using it, not compromising your values and morals because “others" may not understand. Self-care is not about the do or do not list’s, or list of good and bad things; but rather looking at the cost/benefits of each choice you have, and making it based on the cost/benefits for you, and not based on that list. Self-care is treating yourself with the respect and love that you seek from others, if you do not give it to yourself then how can you expect anyone else to return it.

          During a recent state audit, I was able to have a conversation with the auditor and somehow we got on the subject of falling in love. I have to paraphrase some of the conversation, but the essence of the conversation was this, “Falling in love means that you learn to love yourself through the eyes of someone else".  You say that you love the way that your partner or someone makes you feel, what are you are really saying is “I love myself". So, you learn to accept and appreciate you for you because someone else says “you are perfect the way you are." You fall in love with yourself through the eyes of another, but you learned to accept yourself for who you are because they gave you permission to love yourself, because they did. So, this new year and all year long do not make a resolution that you may or may not stick to but rather make the commitment to yourself, to take care of yourself thru “self-care". And, the rest will fall into place! Give yourself permission to love yourself for who you are and to take care of yourself!

Happy New Years!

     

Your message is dead on why we should not just reserve the beginning of the new year to make changes in our lives. I know when I made the decision to pursue weight-loss surgery it was not the beginning of the year but rather the middle of July. It was after talking to a psychiatrist you said something similar that now is the time I should focus on taking care of myself instead of trying to take care of everybody else in my life. I do believe that periodically throughout the year we need reminders to evaluate where we are at in our lives and goals that we have set for ourselves. In my studies in my MBA program we talk about goals a lot and costantly evaluating them. Goals need to be specific, realistic, and have a time frame for completion. I read a article about New Year resolutions where a pyschologist had said that the main reason why people fail to keep resolutions is because they are too general and need to specific. The example he gave many people want to lose weight. He said a better resolution would be to state the amount of weight you want to lose. I know I have looked back at what I have accomplished the past year and what I want to accomplish in 2011. I try to evaluate my life on a monthly basis because sometimes I meet a goal and need to set a new goal.  One goal I made for my self was to write a article about my weight loss journey in hopes of inspiring others to try to lose weight know matter if they chose to pursue a WLS or not. I still in the writing process was hoping to have already fini**** but as I got started writing the more thought about my own journey my article grew in size, which contains some data from several government research studies and other articles I have encoutered. Needless to say, your post was extremely thoughtful and inspirational. I am hoping that I can finish my own writing endeavor here in the next few weeks and then decide what I want to do with the article.  Thank you for sharing your thoughts and inspirational writing it is extremely helpful.

Michael

I HATE THINKING OR MAKING NEW YEARS' RESOLUTIONS

because I spent so much of my life PRE-WLS surgery making these resolutions, to have a better life, to lose weight, to diet, to this, to that...etc etc....that I just have a hard time setting myself up for more failure......but instead of setting these up as resolutions.........

they are mini-goals to work towars so to speak

Did that make sense?