Another New Beginning!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I know, everyone’s saying that. And the grumpy ones are replying, “What’s so happy about it?” And the blissful LOA-Bunnies are saying, “It can be a happy new year, or it can be a miserable one. Your choice, grumpy-butt.” Which makes the grumpy ones even grumpier.

The question of New Year’s Resolutions always comes up this time of year, so we might as well tackle it right now. Are resolutions good or bad? Do they work? If they do, then why are we all resolving to do the same darn things, year after year? Lose weight, quit smoking, etc.

Here’s why. Because resolving to do something isn’t the same thing as doing something. And because saying, “This year I will….” or worse “This year I will try to….” is the same thing as saying, “Because I don’t currently.”

To work, a resolution has to be–well, not a resolution. But more of a shift in your perception. A new way of being.

Okay, say you’re looking out the northern facing window of your home at an oak tree every single day, and you’re sick to death of that oak tree. You might “resolve” to stop looking at that oak tree. You’re looking at it as you resolve not to. You’re talking about the oak tree as you make your resolution. You’re telling everyone on line how you’re going to give up looking at that oak tree this year for sure. Yep, you say, staring it down. You just wait, oak tree. I’m going to try not to look at you so often next year. That’s what I’m going to do.” And then you glare at it and wait for it to disappear because you’ve said the magic words.

It doesn’t work that way, folks. You actually have to move your ass to another window, and look at something else. You have to actually stop looking at the oak tree. You need to turn away from it. You can’t just threaten to.

So as for your resolutions for the newborn year, don’t talk about what you’re going to do, or worse, what you’re going to try to do. Just start doing it. Start being who you want to be. Tomorrow, the first day of the new year, do all the things the person you wish you were would be doing. Wish you were thinner? Then do the things that, in your perception, thin people do. Go jogging. Visit a gym. Eat nuts and twigs. Think like a thin person. Act like a thin person. And you will become a thin person.

What you can’t do is stand there telling your fat you that you’re not going to be fat anymore while noticing how fat you are, and expect the fat to fall off.

Just start being thin.