It's a new year....

... Yup

I am not a fan of outrageously life changing New Years resolutions like "I'm going to get in shape this year and lose 50 pounds!" or "That midnight champagne is my last drink EVER!!" or "First thing tomorrow morning, I'm a Vegan!"

These type of resolutions are too all encompassing and too vague and tooooo much.

Like too many things these days, these type of statements are all or nothing in their nature, and that is doomed to fail. As you are looking to make a change in your life, figure out the big picture goal, and it can be something incredible like, "I am going to stop drinking alcohol this year." Then figure out what to do every day to reach that goal; in this case it seems pretty simple, just don't drink, but lets break it down.

Every goal has little things scattered throughout life just waiting to blow it up. Those little powdered donuts left out on the table; one won't set me back too much... huh, I ate all of them. So many scratch tickets when I go to get milk, I'll just try my luck with one...

On and on they go, so what do we do about these little bastards waiting to undermine us?

Have a plan in place and then don't kick yourself when you are down.

Have a list of reasons why you are putting yourself through this depravation. The mind game that your are missing out on living your life because you decided to make a change is simply a game. Make the decision to make that change and remember why you did, what your goal is and how your life will benefit from making the change. It has to have a benefit, otherwise, why did you want to make the change to start with? Most people don't make a conscious decision to do something that makes their life worse, so you are trying to make it better by default.

"I want a healthy liver so that it can process the fat in my body properly instead of getting hijacked by poison every time I have a drink, then I will be able to lose some weight and maybe my knees won't hurt as much!"

There are all sorts of tricks we play on ourselves to keep doing what we have been doing and if you fall for it and eat the whole carrot cake that's left over from your Dad's birthday, don't beat yourself up about it, apologize to your Dad and move on. It's just a setback, time to reset again. Make a deal with yourself, "Today, I won't eat that cake, maybe tomorrow, not today." Keep on doing it, because it is a step towards the big goal, the big goal has no defined time, the little goals are for today. Once the little one is reached, it's time for the next little one and the next and the next. Soon the little goals start to look pretty impressive to the person you were when you started setting them, but not so incredible from where you are as the person who has accomplished them. Maybe next New years you will have accomplished that big goal, maybe you have surpassed it and didn't even notice because you accomplished the little goals in the moment and all the steps along the way added up to take you beyond what you thought was possible this year. Maybe you didn't get that goal, that's alright too, did you progress towards it? Just keep on making that little bit of progress, because it's better than not doing it.

Have a Happy New Year by being happy with each little step you take towards who you want to become.