NEW YEAR, Same humans (And that’s Okay)

Every January, something magical happens.

Gyms are packed. Fitness classes are standing room only. Water bottles multiply. People who haven’t eaten Kale since 2014 suddenly love it.

And by mid-February?

Crickets.

I know this firsthand because I used to be a fitness instructor.

January was chaos. February thinned out. By March I was back to knowing every person in the room by name and knowing their emotional backstory. This has nothing to do with people being lazy or weak. It’s because New Year’s resolutions don’t work the way we wish they did.

THE PROBLEM WITH ALL OR NOTHING.

-I am going to work out 5 days a week

-I am cutting out all fun. All sugar. All alcohol.

-I am going to be a different person by February.

That is not a plan, but a hostage situation.

Our nervous system does not respond well to sudden massive overhauls. Neither do our

schedules, families, or our trauma histories. As humans we tend to get tired, overwhelmed or even discouraged. When the change is too big the brain does what it is designed to do....it protects us by shutting the entire plan down.

Cue shame. Cue quitting. Cue excuses.

WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS

What works is not dramatic

It’s boring

It’s unsexy

It does not photograph well for Instagram.

It’s incremental change, practiced over time.

Walking 10 minutes instead of the hour you had planned. Drinking one or more glasses of water that day instead of carrying your large bottle of water everywhere.

Pausing in the moment instead of vowing to be calm forever.

Showing up imperfectly to the gym instead of waiting to be motivated.

Small changes don’t shock the system. They teach it.

And once the nervous system learns “We are safe doing this regularly,” then the consistency becomes possible. There is a children’s story about the turtle and the hare. The turtle’s slow methodical method in the end helped him win the race as opposed to the crazy fast rabbit, who ultimately burned out.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF RESOLUTION

This year instead of asking myself what I should fix about myself?

Try asking.....

What is one small thing I could practice that supports who I am becoming. Instead of cleaning out your entire garage, maybe one item a day could be purged, and by the end of the year you have the garage you desire. It’s okay if it takes a year, but you are moving forward.

That really is how change sticks or how habits form....a little at a time.

And if you fall off or forget, you don’t have to wait until next year, you can start again tomorrow.

There is a Scripture verse that I love that says “His mercies are new every morning.”

Little by little, inch by inch, one session of therapy at time we change....not all at once. I had a client review her year and she could not believe the changes she had made during her year of therapy which involved coming to therapy every other week, she had underestimated her small wins which had ultimately turned out over the course of the year to be huge wins.

Happy New Year, and here is a toast to getting rid of resolutions!!

Where Minds Bloom,

Genie