Photo by littledan77

Yay!  Christmas is over!  Time to get my act back together.  You see, I’ve really slacked off since Thanksgiving, and I’m ashamed of myself.  I started eating on Turkey Day, and I haven’t stopped.  I have this week off from work, so it’s time to start adding some good habits.

I could blame my binging on the stresses of the holiday season.  Year-end is crazy for us finance types.  Good thing there were trays of cookies at work to calm my nerves.  And my outdoor icicle lights kept blowing fuses.  Stress is a killer, I tell ya.  Yeah, right.

See, I’m not a big believer in New Year’s Resolutions.  Most of my resolutions are broken before the first week of January has passed.  If you follow the logic that it takes three weeks to make or break a habit, you can see that I usually fall short.  But this year, I’m doing it differently, and I’ll try to add one good habit each month to my routine.  Baby steps.

Why am I setting the bar so low?  Think back to your own resolutions.  If you’re like me, you probably vowed to eat healthy, exercise regularly, read a new book each week, yadda yadda yadda.  How many of you stayed the course?  I thought so.  Me neither.  The one exception was when I gave up alcohol.  That one lasted about two and a half months.  A modern miracle, as I was in college at the time.

So, in light of my past record, I’m starting slowly.  And I’m not waiting for New Year’s Eve to begin, since I’ll have a whole week off to devote to my new habit.  I’ll also keep a positive spin on it, so that it doesn’t feel like I’m denying myself.  So this month’s new habit is to eat healthier.  I’m not swearing off junk food; I’ll just eat less of it, and fill the void with fruits and veggies.  Baby steps.  I’ll report back with my progress when the month is up.

How about you?  Feel like changing your life this year?  Try baby steps.  You’ll give yourself more of a chance to succeed.  Let me know how you make out.

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