It is now 2014 and that means it's that time of the year to vow to make changes and better yourself. New years resolutions are the way to make yourself feel good about the upcoming year. BUT THEY ALSO FAIL. LIKE ALL THE TIME. If you look at the numbers, less than half of the people in the United States make resolutions, and of those roughly 46% make it past six months still trying. It makes sense though. It's a new year and everyone wants to turn a new leaf. Especially when you get older, you want to take steps towards achieving your dreams and being a better you. So most people make generalized or grand statements for their resolution. "I'm going to lose all this extra weight this year." "I'm going to get a promotion." "I'm going to be a better person." All of those are viable goals, and very admirable, but there's a lot of work between creating the feel good statement and achieving said goal. You have to go beyond the statement to make it happen.
I am a victim of such resolutions. Losing weight has been on my plate since I was seventeen. My resolution for last year was to use caps lock more often than I had before in my Facebook statuses. While I didn't do it ALL THE TIME, I did do it more than I had before, so I dub last year a major SUCCESS! This year I decided to tool my resolution towards my fitness goals. I had an idea but it took some time to figure out the wording. I felt like I was an attorney drafting up a contract with this one.
My resolution for this year is "For 2014 I vow to believe in the power of 'One' and I will stay true to myself as long as I'm not lying to myself."
It's complex, but in my head it's simple. Totally worth the two days of deliberation to come up with it. What makes this beautiful is how this will translate to my everyday life. This two-parter has dual meanings.
"The power of one" refers to my own drive and determination. Something that I do often is doubt myself. I've always lived in a shadow of my inner voice. Time after time I stop myself from trying because inside it feels that I can't do it. Everyone has that little voice that chimes in when danger is looming over a decision. That's how the human race has been able to live on for all these years. For me, I live in constant obedience of that voice. That causes me to not express myself or speak out for or against an action or thought. That causes me to stop pushing myself when deep down I know that I can go farther. That causes me to hesitate in situations that could be substantially beneficial for me if I just took the risk. Ninety percent of the time I yield to that inner voice. This year (and every year going forward) I'm going to be more firm in my stances and bold in my actions. I'll also push myself harder and more often to achieve whatever goals I may be attempting to reach. I'm going to believe in myself and realize my value in the world.
"The power of one" in inclusion to the rest of the resolution is set to motivate me more. In this case I'm going to be lying to myself. Often. The power of one will be used to downplay any obstacle that is in my way. Get up. Get out. Run one lap. Do one set of pushups. Do one set of crunches. Go to the gym one time a week. Do one set. Get one sale at work. The examples go on and on. But if I'm truly not feeling like doing it then I'll bust out the one and then call it quits having achieved something. Then I won't feel so bad if I do end it early. I'll guilt myself into doing it on the basis of it's going to be easy. Nine times out of ten, once I'm out there in the element then I'm going to keep on going.
I've learned that lethargy and sloth are easy to succumb to. ESPECIALLY when the task is daunting. Running sucks because I hate the feeling of being out of breath. Pushups and crunches suck because they require effort to push through the pain and exhaustion to get one more. (there it is again!) Through the power of lying to myself I can take those weak thoughts and toss them to the wayside. Lying to myself comes easy, I've done it off and on my entire life. That's how I got to be where I'm at now good and bad. Transitioning it to fitness has been tough at times but also fun in seeing how much further I can go.
I've come around to running and pushing myself harder and harder because, while it doesn't get easier when you're constantly trying to advance, I do get better at it. I'm now able to rationalize the feelings of panic in my brain when my heart rate and breathing increase. I can talk myself into taking one more step. Progress is easy to measure in hindsight. At the end of this year when I'm doing the Turkey Trot, I'll look back to me now and laugh at how pathetic I was. Without the work though, that'll never happen.
I'd like to say that I'll always stay true to me, and I will always be honest with where I stand. I have to really pay attention to the gauge that alerts me to how critical I'm being of myself. Without the constructive criticism then I cannot get better. Yet I can't spend my whole life being downtrodden due to negative thoughts either. To put a number on my goals for the year, I'd like to lose one pound a week. Meaning a whopping 48 pounds. At last weigh-in I was tipping the scales at 312, which is very disappointing, but tomorrow I begin the official measurements to base everything off of.
Continuing to lose weight is going to revolve around dedication, realistic goals, and discipline. I've shown flashes of all of those over the past year and a half that I've put towards losing weight. 2013 was better than 2012, but I want it to pale in comparison to 2014. A resolution such as the one that I've hammered out may be just the kick in the ass to make sure that I make it happen! It's large and demanding but also simple and easy to succeed under the proper pretenses. So I hope you all have put as much thought into your resolutions as I have for mine, and if not, it's not too late to tweak it and make it something that will allow you to achieve your goals! I'm about to figure out dinner so I'll leave you all at that!
Until the next episode