I’ll first begin with wishing you all a lovely new year. May 2021 truly find you happier, healthier and joyous at best, and offer abundant success and inspiration for all your endeavours. While we do celebrate the new year and leave our past in the past, it is also time to make some decisions. Something that we are usually pumped about as the year begins, but we tend to flatten out and give up!
Resolutions; the constant hum of the new year, and our biggest challenges. We all decide on one, and the checklist begins building slow and steady. Our checklist for resolutions always keeps piling up from the previous year. We achieve some, we falter on some. More often than not, we end up disappointing ourselves. This is not because we don’t achieve what we set our minds to. It is mostly so because we don’t do it in the given (to ourselves) timeframe. Lose weight? Eat right? Fight less? Earn more? Cry better? Work harder?
All absolutely necessary in life, but difficult to adhere to, when there is always temptation waiting around the corner for us. So this year, why not try, and keep trying. The best way to fix a new year’s resolution, is not to have one. I’m all for making healthier choices, but not when we put a time limit on them. Do it for you, for your heart and for your soul. Do it because you want to, not because you have to. Better living never has a cost to it; it is only ever a value-add to your life. Think of it like this:
- Routine hours of sleep? Better awake hours!
- Fresh unprocessed food? A happy healthy system!
- A jog in the morning? Fresh start to the day!
- A swim in the evening? Washing off a tough day with a fresher outlook!
- All of it together? Better living, less mood-swings and 100% happy moods!
Think of it like your very own white picket fence. You start putting it together, paint it once. If the rain washes it all off, you start all over again. Till you achieve the perfect boundary to your home. Think of all the good habits being inculcated like the paint on the fence. Your body is your home, your temple. Protect it, make it pretty; but feed it well, listen to its needs. It doesn’t have to have a time-line. Set your goals, but also convince yourself that you can do this. At your own pace. It doesn’t have to be exactly in a month, or before the year ends. It has to make you feel better; however long it takes. What matters more, is setting your mind to the task. The rest follows!
The best way to achieve a goal, is to not treat it like a chore. It’s like eating a meal; you know you don’t have to do it, but you want to. Because you want some nice food for a range of reasons: to get through a tough day, to take a break from the routine hogwash, or simply to enjoy your time with your loved ones in a better way. Life is limited, but the possibilities of what you do with it are endless. Don’t put a timer on yourself. Give yourself the freedom to want to achieve a goal, without having to need it. Encourage yourself to do better, to work on yourself. It is a long journey, but not a fruitless one. All you need is a little push. And who better to encourage you, than yourself? Better living is a lifestyle by choice, one that we all need. Understanding why you need it is the first step of embracing its entry into your life. The rest of the steps follow on their own. So, start living now, and watch the magic unfold!
Written By Gouri Gupta
Week 2, January 2021
