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Well hello there!.  Happy New Year to all.  Did everyone survive all the Holiday stress, mess, and excitement? I apologize for not posting, the past few months have been a little bit of a whirlwind in the Crocked Under Pressure territory. I’m sure you don’t want to spend the equivalent of binge-watching The Lord of the Rings Trilogy reading just one post. That is not very inspiring for you now is it?   I’ll catch you up as time goes by.

As I sit here watching the Twilight Zone marathon (not my choice), I’m trying to figure out what to blog about first. It’s quite overwhelming.  Even though I have a ton of things to post to catch up, I figure the best topic to start off with is the New Year.

Speaking of being overwhelmed, every New Year we all make a resolution to do something, lose weight, exercise more, stop smoking (which I don’t), become more organized.  The list is endless for all the things we resign ourselves to do for the New Year.  Of course, mine is no different, but where to start?

What happens when we make a specific resolution to say…. exercise more? You go find a local gym, put your name on the dotted line of the contract, plunk down oh about $350 that your mom gave you for Christmas/Hanukkah (because she wants you to be healthy!) and go out and buy that cute little workout number from Lu Lu Lemon, because hey you want to look good when you sweat don’t you?  Ok, first part is done, now the hard part. ACTUALLY GETTING YOUR BUTT TO THE GYM.  Oh, well now, you do happen to make it for the first two weeks, every day for 15 minutes.  You can’t do the hour you intended because, hey you have to get to work and you can’t go sweaty of course or you need to pick up the kids, or go get another outfit, because your butt is not a size 2 anymore and you realize you have to buy work out clothes from Walmart instead of LuLu Lemon.

You’re kinda pleased with yourself because you managed 15 minutes a day for two weeks, not bad.  They say anything is better than nothing.  You have it in your mind you need to do at least 30 minutes the next time you go.  You get there, start your work out, 15 minutes into walking a snail’s pace on the treadmill (hey you have to start slow, right?) you get a charley horse in your leg, oh well can’t finish today.  The next day you start thinking, what if it happens again? Better give your leg a day or so to “heal”.  By the time your leg has “healed,” it’s been 3 months since you’ve seen the inside of the gym.  You figure why bother right?  And you don’t go back.  Does this story sound familiar.  Hey look, don’t beat yourself up.  This happens to a lot of people.  How do you think the gym makes their money? Those who join and don’t go.  Simple.  Too bad life can’t be that simple, right?

Let’s break this scenario down.  It’s not that we don’t have good intentions.  We do.  We just lose motivation about completing a task because it takes too long to accomplish.  We like things to happen yesterday. But they don’t.  As adults, we should know this, because as children our parents used to stay “you have to have patience”.  Didn’t you hate that? The gym scenario should not be about the resolution of exercising more, it should really be about finishing what you start.   Isn’t that a lesson our parents also taught us?  Finish what we start, even if there is no finish to it. Can’t see the end result unless the task is finished right?  What would have happened to the Sistine Chapel if Michelangelo decided he couldn’t paint anymore because he strained his wrist. Not only would the Pope have been really pissed but it would have been an unfinished piece of art.  Shouldn’t we consider ourselves as a piece of art and finish what we started?

Now, about being overwhelmed.  How do we usually finish most tasks?  Draw up a list.  For some people, they would say “I do that all the time”.  Ok, great, then make a list as to how you’re going to complete the task of your resolution.  For those of us who generally don’t live by lists other than the groceries (if we’re lucky), start by jotting down the first thing you need to get done for your resolution and accomplish that then practice, practice, practice. Move onto the next thing on your list, then the next and the next.  Hopefully, by the next time you’re going to make your New Years resolution next year, you finished what you started.

Hubby and I were on Weight Watchers a few months ago and I did happen to lose some of the weight but as life would have it for whatever reasons or excuses (and there are many) we “fell off the wagon” so to speak and I managed to gain back half the weight in a matter of 4 months.  How the heck does that happen? It takes a microsecond to gain 50 lbs but it takes a decade lose 2 lbs.  Anyway, today it’s back to Weight Watchers to hear about their new program.  So first step on my list for weight loss, go back and reacquaint myself with the program.

There are so many things I would like to do this year. We’ll start with the standard lose weight, exercise more, be more organized, cook more at home and work more on my blog AND be great at it. I think I need to narrow the field by saying, instead of actually making a resolution for each particular part of life may be a more specific reason would be better.  That is what my resolution is going to be this year.  Finish what I start.  I think if I look at it from that point of view, maybe, just maybe I just might be successful.  I better go and start making my list.