You made your resolution. You’re going to eat less junk food, maybe you’ll exercise. You might write that book you’ve been thinking about (or maybe just read one!)…
…but do you ever really keep your resolutions?
I have only ever made one resolution that I kept in a meaningful way. A few years ago, inspired by a friend, I decided to stop talking about dieting and exercise on social media. This sounds pointless and goofy, I know. But for me it was something of a big deal. Dieting and exercising, the quest to be ever-thinner, had been a HUGE part of my life since 8th grade and talking about it on Facebook, in particular, had become a weird and annoying habit.
When I heard this friend of mine say that he was going to stop posting about his own fitness and diet habits because of how it felt both like bragging and like pressure upon others, I had a full-on lightbulb moment. Hearing or reading others’ talk about weight loss and exercise was normalizing what, for me, was not necessarily normal. If this friend of mine was going to go run 10 miles, I felt like I needed to go run ten miles. Even if I’d just taken a yoga class or a bike ride. It was my own personal weirdness, but his commitment to not doing that any longer made me realize that I wasn’t handling this all in a very healthy way, either.
So I decided to stop talking about it – not just on social media, but in real life, too. If someone asked where I was headed, and I happened to be headed for a run, of course I would talk about it. But I stopped talking about calories, stopped talking about my body in a negative way, stopped talking about needing to exercise more or eating less. And honestly, that changed my life. It started a process of balancing out what had been a lifelong preoccupation with thinness and food, a process that would take years to really come to a happy, healthy place.
And it started with one sort of stupid resolution posted on Facebook.
So, how about you? Was there ever one resolution that really clicked for you?
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Photo: Flickr/Morgan
I’ve always succeeded at my resolutions, and that’s not due to some testosterone-driven macho thing. They really aren’t difficult! All they require are (1) that the goal be reasonable and achievable, (2) that one have the mindfulness to remember it, and (3) the self-discipline to adhere to it. Someone who routinely fails at resolutions might consider which of these success factors could be strengthened in order to succeed. IMNSHO.