If you are like most people, you probably started the year off hot and heavy and ready to make some big changes in your life. You made resolutions and promised yourself that this was the year that you should stick to them. But things seldom go as intended, even with the best laid plans. Soon the resolutions fell by the wayside, and you mourned your missed chance for big changes …
Sound familiar? That happens to a lot of people. But why should you let the stumbling blocks of January stop you from making good changes now? Self Magazine says that you simply shouldn’t. Instead, give yourself a redo and start again … Now!
Self Magazine’s Editor in Chief Lucy Danziger says that people should give themselves an opportunity to restart their resolutions today, on Mulligan Monday. Mulligan, a golfing term, just means a restart …
Now, are you ready to restart? Danziger offered these special tips for The Voice of Mom readers to get you started:
How to handle the fact that your January resolution didn’t quite get off the ground? Start again!
Realize that a date is just a date. What’s great is you can start over any day! January is full of the usual stresses but they can be magnified because December was full of fun – perhaps you went away, probably you spent some money over the holidays. Now you have more work to do in less time, more bills to pay, and you have all this expectation that diet and fitness will work out and it’s cold out! So we should give ourselves a break. January is the new December, and February is the new January!
Allow yourself a new chance. You can slip up and start over. It’s not all or nothing. If you can stop yourself and say, this popcorn doesn’t ruin my entire day, I’ll have a healthy dinner, that’s OK. Sometimes ice cream is just ice cream, it’s not a snowball. Women have to say to themselves, “they were just cookies, let them go.”
When I find myself stress eating I ask, not “what am I eating,” but “what’s eating me?”
It’s important to figure out what’s “eating you” and solve those problems. For me it’s my long to-do list, so I make a list of lists for today, tomorrow, midterm, long-term etc. If I get at least some of it done, I feel better. Sometimes it means saying I can go to sleep and do it tomorrow.
It’s important to step back and say, “why am I doing this?” You’ll keep moving the deadline on your “resolution” if you don’t figure out what your real problem is and solve it.
Every month in SELF – and every day on Self.com – is a new opportunity to learn one new piece of advice about being happier and healthier. Check out our motivating videos, fun quizzes, delicious recipes, free workouts and simple stress-relief techniques. And let us be your road map to feeling good and looking good, from the inside out!
And remember, you get a “mulligan” every morning!
Sarah W. Caron is a Connecticut-based writer and editor who is doing great with her 2010 goals. Read about them, and her favorite foods, on Sarah’s Cucina Bella.
