Happy New Year! Here it is, January 2nd, and I’ve already broken one of my resolutions. I ate way too much yesterday, and not the good stuff either. I deluded myself into thinking this was acceptable because it was a holiday, and it’s a tradition to over-eat on holidays. Apparently the cheese dip went to my head and I just couldn’t stop myself. It was so yummy.
But now I’m paying for it. Stomach in knots and banging my head against the wall as I realize I am not good at New Year’s resolutions. Oh, I’m great at making them; it’s keeping them that’s the problem. Each year I try to make realistic resolutions, ones that stand a chance of being kept, and each year on December 31st I’m disappointed in myself for not sticking to the resolutions. Honestly, I wonder why I even bother with these things.
Maybe the New Year’s resolutions aren’t the problem. Maybe it’s that my results don’t match up with the goals I’ve set. Apparently my expectations are based on fantasy, whereas the results are based in reality. Let’s take a look and see where I went wrong this past year:
1) Eat healthier. This is always a good resolution. My fantasy expectation was to bring healthy, nutritious lunches to work; to incorporate fresh vegetables and fruits with every meal. Reality: I brought my lunch more (yay), but most of the time it included tortilla chips. Yes, they are made of corn but I don’t think they count as a veggie. My guacamole intake also increased, and while avocados are considered a fruit (and since they are green I think they double as a veggie), too much of a good thing is a negative for the waistline.
2) Exercise More. In January Hubby and I started out great, with yoga classes, treadmills and weights. Hubby even took on the scary P90X program with much success. Then somewhere along the way, reality kicked in. Going to the gym became boring; work got in the way; sometimes it was too hot to exercise and other days it was too cold; the yoga teacher left town (hopefully not because of us) – the list of excuses goes on and on. I even convinced myself that, being naturally small, I didn’t really need to worry about the gym. LOL! I must have been delusional from too much guacamole.
3) Lose Weight/get in shape. The reality of this resolution is that I would have lost five pounds and that I would have exercised enough to be toned and able to run three miles easily. My fantasy expectation is that I would by now look like a super model with abs of steel and be in contention for a top finish in the Iron Man. Of course neither the reality nor the fantasy version happened. Duh – see the results of resolutions 1 & 2.
4) Clean/organize the house. In general our house is in pretty good shape. But like everyone, we have a few spaces that always seem to be cluttered; a dumping ground of sorts for miscellaneous stuff. My fantasy is that my house will be pristine and perfect; that House Beautiful could come take photos at anytime without one item out of place. Reality? The closet doors shut tightly enough to conceal most of the stuff, the couch is clear so people can sit down and the dog hair is kept to a minimum.
5) Save money. This is always a top priority for us, one that we usually stick to. But something happened this year and we’ve seen more money exit the accounts than we’d like. Fantasy is that we would have only spent on necessities and saved the rest. Reality is that the new shoe styles spoke to me more than usual this year, so my feet are happy but at the expense of the checkbook.
6) Reconnect with friends. You’d think this would be easy, since we have so many friends living within a 45 minute drive. Fantasy – I would have had at least one lunch with 10 different friends over the course of the year. That didn’t happen this year. Reality is that I took more of a passive approach, sending notes that said “we’ve got to get together”. Even had some follow-up notes trying to schedule a time. But you know that drive time is something to consider, not to mention conflicting schedules. And those with kids need to plan for such an outing, unlike me, who can be fairly spontaneous. Sigh. I’m not going to win any “best friend” contest here.
It might be best to condense my 2013 resolutions down to one: In 2013 I’ll visit the gym once a month, bring an apple to snack on at work once a week, I’ll have lunch with two friends during the year eating vegetable plates to stay healthy, I won’t look at the spare rooms in our house so the clutter will no longer bother me and I’ll only buy new shoes that are an absolute necessity.
Yeah, right. Like that’s really gonna happen.
Like Tami, I was terminated once (By my best friend, BTW – he is now on the board of the agency I lead, so I got him back – ha!), but you don’t have to be unemployed to learn something from this book. 
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