Jan the 2^nd. Where HAS the year gone?

If you’re like me, you’ve already discovered that the resolutions you set 3 days ago are faltering. I think there’s a good reason for this.

You got drunk on New Year’s Eve, and your promise to do something physically or mentally challenging the following day got lost in a fog of sleep deprived, alcohol- or food-induced discomfort. If not, good for you. For the rest of us, it’s reality.

But that excuse doesn’t exist this morning, does it?

Time to go back to work unless you organised time off, and already the routines have obstructed any likelihood that a new behaviour can kick in. Your environment has, over the years, created psychological cues that dictate a conditioned response. Which is why, despite the intent to eat well, the smell and convenience of toast, bacon or a breakfast roll trump those good intentions.

“I can start tomorrow.” When the same conditions apply.

No, folks – personal improvement is never easy. In fact, it’s damn hard. But it’s also common sense.

Which is why I recommend that IF you are lulled by bookshops into buying any self-help title with the words ‘easy’ or ‘secret’ in their title, you resist the impulse to buy them with every fibre of your being. The books that promise how you’ll be unstoppable in your goal-achievement ‘in 90 days’ are also suspect unless your goal is to buy something you can afford.

Seek out the ones that make it plain that it’s going to take some effort on your part to make things happen. Recognise that anything meaningful takes effort, planning, time, occasionally money (which takes time, effort and planning to obtain), and commitment.

Commitment to The Cause, allied to recognition that you are that Cause, followed by the creation of a better, healthier more prosperous you is not selfish – because a better, healthier more prosperous you can serve other better and for longer than an ill, skint, half-arsed version of you.

Happy New Year – and Happy New You.

Now to go walk my talk………….