Happy New Years my lovelies!

I hope you all had a great night to end the old year and ring in the new years. I hope you all surrounded yourselves with people you love and that make you happy. That’s what we all should be doing this year, maybe we can all make that a resolution to ourselves of some sorts.

Let’s talk about resolutions and why they get bad reps. Everyone always promises a new “self” for themselves in the new year. Everyone suddenly has a new lease on life. Sure, new years is a great time for renewal. It’s that way in the calendar year as well as the church. Perhaps we’re making these resolutions to ourselves for the wrong reasons, and that’s why so many people fail. Maybe that’s why you have fight for a treadmill on Jan 1, but by Jan 30 it’s a ghost town at the gym. People make these “resolutions” so that they can be as pretty as Kendall Jenner, so that they can get the guy they've been fawning over, so that they can like what they see in the mirror. All of those things can be achieved with a simple change of mind, except for the Kendall Jenner part, that’s basically saying you want to be as pretty as photo-shop. 

I say we resolve these resolutions a little bit. I want to make two modifications to our New years tradition. It’s almost like “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift, except no children will be harmed. First, those who promise themselves to shed some weight to look at it differently. You can lose weight by getting a haircut. You can only change the way your body looks by changing your lifestyle and mindset. You can set goals to drop pounds, however you can improve the results of how you look by focusing on certain body parts. Instead of saying, “I want to get rid of my fat legs,” say I want to have lean, long, and toned legs for days. Then, do workouts for your quads, calves, and inner thighs. Instead of saying “I want to loose my belly pooch,” say you want to strive for a strong core. Pilates is great for the core, your abs will be showing off in no time. Also, instead of complaining about your “fat ass” start squatting to lift that booty up! What I’m proposing is don’t become a cardio bunny - those people that stay on the elliptical for hours at the gym and don’t work any muscle groups. Yes, that gets your heart pumping and sweating is always great, but take days to focus on tightening those muscles so you can actually have the tone and fit body you want.

Another part to that proposal is to switch your mindset. We should make these new years resolutions for ourselves. You are the only person you need to impress. Yes, it feels great for friends, family, coworkers, and significant others to notice your success, however feeling proud of yourself and your success must be the best feeling out there. Saying “I DID IT!,” must warm your heart. Strive for that feeling. Once you feel that, the boy, the promotion, and the Kendall Jenner-ness will come soon after.

One final proposal is to change the name of this. “Resolution” is a fine word, however there is so much pressure attached to it. It sounds like there is no wiggle room, no room for cheat days. Our SOUL needs to be fed, too, that’s why there are cheat days. I say instead of resolutions we refer to them as promises to ourselves. “I promise to finally be happy with my body and feel fit, and therefore feel happy,” we should say instead of, “My resolution is to lose 50 pounds.” Promising yourself a better you (even though you are already amazing) is the first step to body and mind positivity and the first step to success. Resolving to yourself to lose a random amount of weight for someone who might not even notice is the first step to failure.

And now, I’ll end with my own promises and goals. It’s always important to set some goals, whether it be professionally, emotionally, creatively, socially, or spiritually as well. My promises to myself is to stop being such a living, breathing doormat and to stand up for myself more. To make myself heard and to know what I want. Basically stop teeter tottering and get my act straight. I also don’t want to plateau and keep aiming towards a fit figure.

My goals are to make deans list again for the two semesters that are in 2014 and to start making a greater profit from my blog. I want to actually see where all this blogging is taking me and if I can handle my own business someday. Let’s make things happen!