So we approach the new year again. This one seems to have come around almost a breath after the last one. I am ashamed to admit that I have not even come close to achieving my new years resolution for last year. It frankly terrifies me to remember how clearly committed I was to my pledge, and yet nothing at all came of it. This time last year I pledged to myself, to my child and to my future to lose 12 kg over the year. I now weigh exactly the same as I did at this time last year.
Where did I go wrong? I clearly visualised the goal. I desperately wanted it. I created a SMART goal breakdown to ensure it was specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed. I set small monthly targets and then each month, I failed to meet them. Each month I vowed again to do better and didn't. I can only conclude that the goal was not, in fact, achievable and realistic because it lacked something... the connection between what I wanted to achieve, and what I did on a daily basis was missing. It was certainly not because I pigged out and lived in indulgent denial. I ate fairly well but not brilliantly, exercised in bursts but not consistently, and over-all did a luke warm job of it that meant that while I didn't put on any more weight, nor did I lose any.
This year I need to decide how to make things different. Simply focusing on really wanting it does not inspire me, because I did that last year and its obviously not enough. So I ponder... what can I do differently this year? What is it that will make things different. I really really really need to achieve this goal. How can I go about making it last as an abiding and successfully dominant theme for my year?
My friend has been sending me inspirational blog excerpts, bless her... and two points from these jump out at me now. Firstly - if you want to achieve a goal you need to commit resources to it. And this I have not done. I have spent money and time on other things... on friends, excessive grocery shopping, generous spoiling of my child etc...but I have not sacrificed anything to prioritise my health goal. I didn't cut back on spending in other areas in order to be able to afford a personal trainer or a gym membership. I didn't cut back time for socialising or relaxing in order to make time to exercise. I didn't choose my goal over anything else, I expected to be able to have it all. I expected to simply lay my goal on top of everything else in my life and not change other things... This is one thing I could do differently.
And the second point is about limiting how many goals you try to achieve at the same time. I have had a list of different areas of my life that are not working for me... and I have been trying to work on all of them at once. The consequences are that I have achieved a little in a lot of areas, but nothing much in any one area. I have improved my work situation slightly (from terrible to tolerable at the moment); I have been a reasonably good parent, although I have avoided toilet training til now and this needs to start in the new year; I have been slightly more organised with my finances, though there are a lot more budget sheets than there are outcomes; I have had months of reduced grocery bills by restricting myself to $10 a week to eat down my cupboards, but nothing has radically changed, I am still over-buying and over-stocked; I have developed some of my friendships in some ways, although I still don't spend enough time with people and feel a constant wish to see them more; I have navigated a relationship that was wonderful and challenging, but which ended partly because of protestations that I didn't invest enough of my resources into it; and many more of my themes have moved slightly...but not significantly.
So this is another area I could change. I could simply divert almost all of my attention into one goal until it is achieved... allowing everything else to simply tick over as it has been unless there is a disaster or emergency...and then move on to the next goal. I am impatient. This seems frustratingly slow - and yet I need only look at the amount of achievement my previous strategies have brought to bear... and indeed - the process of achieving any outcomes while juggling too many balls can only be described as SLOOOOW whilst at the same time I feel overly busy and exhausted.
To let go of trying to achieve change in lots of areas of my life at once will not be an easy thing. The biggest hurdle I come up against immediately, in even considering it, is my own inner judgement and fear of the judgement of others. If I am "working on improving" an area of my life then I am in some ways excused, I believe, from the assessments of inadequacy that I constantly feel about so many areas of my life. If I chose one goal and only focus on that one, then I have to live with the inner critical voice which tells me loud and clear that all of the other areas are simply not good enough and questions how I can continue to live like that?? But I suppose that I simply need to face that voice and let it know that each area will have their turn and go back to the one area that is my current target. So if I am to focus on losing weight then I will no longer pressure myself to budget my finances better, keep my house tidier, spend more time with friends, be a better girlfriend, do more creative things, be a better mum, improve my career, do more in the garden, reduce my grocery spending etc etc I bet, ironically, if I was to do this then I might find that the other areas improved all on their own.
The second hurdle will be overcoming my people pleasing tendencies. I tend to not want to rock the boat, and to put my own goals and needs as secondary to keeping the peace with others. Just now my mum came in to talk about what to have for dinner tonight. She is thinking of prawn pasta. My head tells me that pasta for dinner would not be good for me - too many carbs late in the day. But the urge to not be difficult or cause discomfort wins and I smile and nod "that would be fine"... and this is what I do regularly. I say "Yes" to friends, to family, to other priorities - and in the process say "No" to my own goals.
So am I really willing to take this on? Am I really willing to make losing weight my primary priority - allowing all other areas of my life to tick along with the basics? Am I ready to try again given the weight of all of my past failed attempts?
I am going to sit with this question until I can honestly say yes.
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