We've finished out the first week in January - are you still following your New Year's Resolutions? Still gung-ho and hell-bent on keeping each of them in good order? Don't tell me you've given up already!!!
I'm kind of surprised myself, but this year I didn't make any resolutions. This is rather odd for me, anal one that I am. I normally have all my resolutions charted out, color-coded, with action plans, timelines, deadlines...are you tired yet?
But for some reason, this year I took a bit more "break time" after Christmas than I normally do. I ended up with more short-term goals that were easier to accomplish...things like finding a place in our home for all the Christmas decorations that we never had to store anywhere before, realizing that I planted my cucumbers in the wrong season and they just weren't going to grow and making myself pull them up and plant some in-season sugar-snap snow peas, and teaching the kitten to eat solid food. Yep. Not really resolutions, just tasks, I guess. But they all got done!
I did start a diet on January 1, but that was more motivated by shock at stepping on the scale in December and realizing that I was 12 pounds ABOVE my "heaviest I've ever been mark". That was pretty durn disconcerting, and rather upsetting, I must say. Took me a few days to research and meal-plan, and then it just happened that Sunday, January 1 was the best day for me to start.
But here's my question: why do we wait until January 1 to do something that we know good and well all year long we should be doing? Why do we have an epiphany over the summer, and add it to the list of things we'll resolve to do the next year? Why wait?
Perhaps it's the fact that we've just always done it like that. Maybe it's because a new year seems like the perfect time to begin something new. Or could it be that it's what everyone else is doing...
Napoleon Hill once said, "Don't wait. The time will never be just right."
Isn't that life? When is the time ever perfectly "right" for anything? How can you tell?
So why don't we DO things when we're inspired to? Why don't we ACT when we're moved? Can't we implement our decisions without having to do it on a certain day?
What's the holdup? Life's short. Do good things.
