No, Thank You!

I resolved awhile ago to stop making New Year’s Resolutions.  Why set myself up for failure?  Life has that well enough in hand without any help from little ol’ me.   Instead, I try to make both yearly and shorter-term goals, with the acceptance that shit happens, so if they don’t get done, it wasn’t meant to be.

Some will view that as laziness or lack of drive, ambition – I call it letting yourself off the hook for those things beyond your control, because you already have this lovely world to contend with, so why in the hell would you join the ranks against yourself?  Let it go.  Believe it or not, YOU ARE the ONLY ONE expecting you to be perfect – everyone else loves you for who you are – and if they don’t, they don’t deserve to be a part of your amazing life.

I can tell you that I’m aiming to get another book submitted to my publisher ASAP.  Possibly even before New Year’s, but most certainly before Spring.  (See how I give myself leeway, there?) I pray every day that both me and my wonderful children make it through their teen years (long-term) and strive every day not to trade them in for new, upgraded models (short term).  🙂

There are a lot of things I wish for, but I refuse to put them into the category of resolutions or goals, because in my opinion, they’re simply not realistic.  Weight loss, breaking bad habits, eating better, volunteering, donating – anything you only seem to think about heavily at this time of year – don’t bother putting them on your list of Resolutions.

If you were that dedicated to seeing them done, they’d already be done.  You’d already be on a better diet, going to the gym, volunteering at the local food drive, not biting your nails and donating to a wonderful charity.  I’m not saying that attempting to improve your life is a bad thing or even a waste of time – I do attempt to improve myself and my life – I just refuse to do it in a way that makes me feel like a big fat failure when it doesn’t get done either as quickly as I wanted, or at all.

Change your negative stresses out, turn them into something positive – celebrate the small steps, rather than holding off for the trophy at the end – give yourself happy incentives, rather than self-berating lectures.  Honestly, if you can’t cut yourself some slack or give yourself a break every once in awhile – then how can you expect anyone else to?  We teach other people how to treat us.  Start being your best friend, not your drill sergeant, and just watch how others start reacting to you.

So, wasn’t intending for this to be a self-help post, or whatever you want to call it – but here it is.  Hey, look, I accomplished something I hadn’t even set out to do! Yay, me!  I just really enjoy the crazy, brilliant, creative, wonderfully diverse community we have here, so I hope maybe this is found a little useful by someone.  If not – no big – I’m sure I’ll be rambling about something else next week! 😉