It is February!

Where did January go!? ARGH!

I have blinked and am suddenly fully into this new year of 2020…. a year which is going to prove to be a big one globally and locally. A lot of political global and local action that we are all aware of, viruses now declared a global crisis, locally fires are a big issue, and oh my goodness, I put on weight whilst on holiday!

Which one is bothering me the most? (This is where you can picture me hiding my head in shame)

Let me reassure you, my lovely reader (and thank you so much for that), that I am very aware it is a first-world problem, and a pretty good one to have. So I am lucky.

Now back to my soft round body.

A complete result of being out of my comfortable routines and habits. I’ve slipped out of these healthy habits for 4 weeks, I’m feeing it and I need to get back on track. Easily said, not easily done, not without some plans anyway. Thank goodness we are still close enough to our new year to feel that now is a wonderful time to make a few little changes. Whether it is your body, your health, your mind, your spirit, I’m sure that there is something in your life that is less than perfect AND completely in your ability to change. Write a list.

First 2 columns:

1. What you want In your Life

2. What you don’t want in your life

Have a look at those 2 columns.

Do any of the things listed marry up and reflect the other?

Mine sure did.

I was listening to the wonderful Terry Gilliam the other day and he stated that he started off years ago working out what he didn’t want before he worked out what he did want, and this really got me thinking. I’m not sure about you but ideally, I would like to grow and better myself every year and I KNOW, this will NEVER happen if I don’t make plans and stick to them. The trick is to make them short, quantifiable and easy, easy, easy!

Are you worth this self-centred approach?

Absolutely!

Just imagine yourself really happy. You are really happy and walking down the street near you and you are feeling successful, you are feeling a deep inner happiness and confidence that you are terrific and valuable to others. People pass you and smile because they can see the light in your eyes and sense the happy energy that surrounds you. That energy naturally ‘gives’ to others. They smile and they feel better and maybe even pass that on…who knows…. Feel this as you picture this. Happy, successful, valuable. You are useful to others and loved by others. You know some people can’t see this though and they are the ones that might growl at you or be unhappy ‘with’ you. That’s ok, when you walk past them you feel fine and smile anyway because they really need the extra support, and off you continue.

Wonderful feeling isn’t it.

Is a better version of yourself, more intelligent, multilingual, has a great body?

What is a couple of traits this person has? Write them down. I bet they have something to do with what you want and are the opposite of what you don’t want.

Now some actions. Write down one or more things (no matter how unrealistic), that you can do to begin to open yourself to be that person. If it’s intelligence you may want to do a course, read more books, etc. Just free think. You are not beholden to any action. The next steps are really picking an action and breaking it down into easy to do bits. Say learning a language. What if I learned one new word a day….that sounds so easy and so simple and so doable. One word a day, 365 days in a year. This time next year I could know 365 words in Spanish! Think about that. How amazing that would be. You would be you, but a you with 365 words that you know very well. That’s just in one year. The mind boggles to think how your world could look if you did this for the rest of your life. What a truly incredible person you would be and you would have so much more to offer the people in your world.

Wow

With my Active Owls groups, we pick something to do every day of the month. Last year we did x amount of squats daily, another we stretched our hamstrings daily, and the results were great. This month we are enjoying a simple pushup challenge (any variety) to start the year off. We mark off this sheet each time we do this and compare results at the end. Feel free to download this sheet and join in with us :-)

So what do you think? What do you think you will do? I have started small with a walk around the block every morning, not negotiable. I can run it, make it longer, but I have to at least walk it. It is not long as I know what I am like at the moment, lazy! So I keep it reasonable and will add on to it in a few weeks. I like to work this way with clients too. I even thought of getting a coach just to provide me a kick start and make me more accountable. Coaches and fitness challenges are a great way to start this, AND they can all be done online these days. The gym I am in has a terrific 8 week challenge starting soon. Check it out if fitness is your goal and you need some motivation.

So it can be anything. The sky’s the limit!

What COULD you do?

What WILL you do?

…….. I’d love to know :-)