Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Go Easy! (In all ways but one.)

Everyone makes New Years resolutions, right?  I certainly always do.  They vary in subject matter and intensity from year to year, but I always focus on one or more areas of self improvement, and frequently focus on or include the weight loss/fitness issue.   ~HOWEVER~   I have never made it very far into the new year without lagging, slipping up, and fairly quickly outright giving up at whatever it is.  If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm an all or nothing kind of girl.  I'm either kicking ass on plan, or I'm off it and I can do whatever I want.  If I eat some junk food on a day I was trying to be good, then all bets are off and it is a free pass to keep on eating and restart tomorrow, next week, whenever.  If I plan to do something regularly and then I miss a few times, I tend to quit altogether rather than resume and keep it going.  My house is either immaculate, or once it slips a bit I let it go way worse before getting it back in order.  You get the idea.

I also have a lot of other stuff I want to fix/improve about myself and my life besides weight/fitness.  I'm not always as patient a parent as I'd like.  I spend more money than I should.  I don't always work as hard as I could.  I'm also pretty hard on myself, and I get stressed out and anxious easily.  Tough combo.

So, this year I am going to approach all this a bit differently.  Instead of rigid goals, timelines, numbers of calories or workouts per week or other specific quantifiable goal details, I came up with an all-encompassing mantra to focus my attention and plans for improvement in a healthier, simpler way.  Without specifics that cause me to drop it when I don't exactly keep up.  This mantra is simply, "Go Easy."  By this I mean the following:

-Go easy on myself, as in stop trying to be all things to all people, focus on the important people and things, give myself some credit for doing all that I do, and give myself a break for not being just like everybody else, etc.
-Go easy on the eating.  I have such food and sugar addiction issues, and I struggle with it every day.  It's become an ingrained habit that I allow myself to remain stuck in.  Instead of setting exact calorie limits or other numbers, I'm just going to try to go easy on the food overall, go easy on the unhealthy foods, and do much better.
-Go easy on my family.  Sometimes I am a little bit too controlling or demanding, and I get too tense about the things that matter less.  I'm going to stay more positive, try to go easy on issues that matter less, and strive to put love and peace before strictness and rigidity.
-Go easy on the spending.  Simply be a little bit more frugal, and buy less "stuff" that isn't entirely necessary.
-Go easy on the slacking.  Focus on whatever it is I am doing, be in the moment, don't get sucked up in distractions, don't stay up quite as late watching quite as much tv, etc.

No more "off plan" time, every moment is a chance to make a good decision, every next moment is a chance to more forward from the last one.  Eat less, move more.  Love more.  Spend less.  Try harder.  No more restarts.  Be in every moment, learn to manage stress, find zen.  Go easy.

4 comments:

Melanie said...

Wow - this really resonates with me. When it comes to eating and exercising, I'm an all or nothing girl. I've spent most of my life either dieting or bingeing. No healthy balance. Working on that now. Best of luck with your new plan!!! You can do it!!

Bzybee said...

If what you have tried before does not work, then taking a different approach is absolutely best. I hope it works for you..

E. Jane said...

Hi Cat,
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I like your "go easy" approach to the new year. All of your points make a lot of sense to me and are things that I also need to focus on. Thanks for sharing.

Cat said...

Thanks for the support, ladies! :)