Ah, it's the time of year to make my resolutions. I love this time of year. Mostly because Winter is my favorite season due to all the cool Winter sports we can play in New England. I was out for a mountain bike ride on the trails with my studded tires today and it was awesome! How many places can people actually get to do stuff like that? Here's a resolution for all you anti-Winter, "it's too cold to do stuff" types.. I resolve to get myself some warm clothes and pick up a cool outdoor Winter activity.. Like snowshoeing, or ice skating, or XC skiing, or mountain biking, or trail running... See how easy that was? Nothing warms you up quicker than getting active so the cold is a non-factor. I did a trail run yesterday in single digit temps and a mountain bike ride today in the high teens and I was sweating my butt off on both occasions. Here's another resolution, I resolve to stop digressing when writing my blogs... OK, back to the point of the story.
mountain biking in the snow...
My friend, Tragically Brett, wrote a blog entry on the absurdity of resolutions, pointing out the ridiculous failure rate on the part of people who make them and the reliance on the 1st of the year to attempt to make a positive change in one's situation. To be fair, he's right in that if people want to make a positive change in their lives, then why wait till January 1st? The short answer is because the holidays are hell on many and at almost any other time of the year there are roadblocks in the way that it is best to hit with a little momentum. Summer vacations are killers for people who just recently decided to quit (insert favorite vice here). People have a love/hate relationship with the holiday season from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Nobody is luke warm on the holidays. You either love the season or you can't stand it. Regardless of which side of that fence you stand on, it is not typically the time that people will be successful in quitting (insert favorite vice here). January 1st is the most logical time for resolutions because you've just gotten through the holidays, and let's be honest, you probably just generated a few more reasons that you need a resolution or two. Plus, I have yet to hear of somebody's resolution being derailed by President's Day. So you have a good 5 months of life bettering momentum before Memorial Day brings with it the dawn of cookouts, parties, and Summer vacations.
For some it may be a little too late for certain self-improvement resolutions. Maybe he should just resolve to stop wearing his baseball hat backwards, and to stop wearing the scarf he made out of his pajama bottoms...
Let's step back for a moment and look past the resolutions that have to do with reversing means of self-annihilation like smoking, drinking too much, and gorging on fast food. After all, there are nasty diseases vying for the upper-hand in eventually ending those issues for people who refuse to end them on their own. Brett's right, taking care of yourself should always be on your mind and it's always too late to start.. Yeah, you read that right. You should have started yesterday so what the hell are you waiting for?
The thing I like best about making New Year's resolutions is that it forces me to step back and think about stuff that I never make time to think about. The important, meaningful stuff. In general we are always busy. Busy with work, busy taking the kids places, busy fixing dinner, busy trying to find time to fix the damn (insert broken thing that you haven't gotten to for the last 6 months here). When New Year's comes around I spend hours (not all at once) thinking about things that I'd like to do that would make a positive impact. Whether it's on myself, the people around me, or my environment. What can I do that will make me feel like I'm making a positive contribution? This is a great soul-searching, personal-inventory-taking exercise that really makes you stop and think about where you are and where you want to be. In the last couple weeks I've been thinking about how I talk a good game about how important the environment is to me. I buy organic food, but not as much as I could. I try to buy clothes made from sustainable sources, but I could do better (but so could the companies charging $100 for a pair of pants made from hemp). Maybe I could commute on my bike more often, although it's not really the safest thing for me to ride my bike 9 miles to the gym at 5:00am in the Winter with temps in the teens and roads covered in black ice.. But once the Winter's over? I definitely could. At this time of year I take some time to think about things that interest me that I'd like to learn more about. Things that I can research and use to better help the people that come to the gym. What certifications or training should I take? What books should I read? What topics are the most relevant to what I'm trying to achieve? By the end of this exercise I have a list of things that I'm going to work on throughout the year. I don't get to everything, but that's OK. I get to what I can, and there's always new things that pop up throughout the year that need more attention. For the things that I don't get to, at least the seed has been planted.
This is the year I resolve to stop being such a jackass.
What's important to you? How can you make a positive impact on something that matters to you? This is a great time to step back from your busy day-to-day distractions and really think about the things you don't make time to think about. Make some resolutions. If you come through on any of them then it was worth doing, and even if you don't, it was still worth doing if it at least raised some awareness in you in what you want to achieve. The seed has been planted and when the time is right, if it's important enough to you then you'll get to it.
