Advice from a small town girl

Happy New Year.

Have we all turned over a new leaf? Or are we still trying to get a few more uses out of that old one?

There are lots of pitfalls out there for those of us who are prone to believing that we can change our selves or our behavior just because of a date on the calendar.

I know this, because I spend more time in the pits than I do out of them. Sometimes its easier to just stay in the pit because climbing out is so difficult. And unrewarding, because it seems another pit is just down the path a foot or two.

I’ve been wondering if the use of visualization might help me to achieve some of my goals.

Since the top of the page, I’ve visualized a small, bright green leaf unfurling at the tip of a slender, flexible branch.

Then I visualized a tattered, browning leaf, still with a bit of dark green at the center, but mostly dry-looking, clinging tenaciously to a twig that has been stripped of all other life.

That’s me – refusing to let go of the old ways, afraid that the fall from the twig will damage me more than hanging on has.

I gained a lot of weight over the past month. It’s going to be hard to go back to Weight Watchers on Thursday. But I’m going. Partly I’m going because of my public pledge to become healthier. Mostly I’m going because I have a partner in weight loss, someone who encourages me to keep going, especially when I’ve had a bad case of “What the hell” syndrome. It makes a lot of difference to have someone to encourage you. Kind of like an adult encouraging a child to master a new skill.

That may be a good approach to making any change, whether it’s to yourself, your habits, your home, your career. In this age of immediate gratification, have we lost sight of how we are hard-wired to learn?

We can achieve anything once we break it down into baby steps. Instead of waking up on January 1 thinking that we have to be, or can be, perfect is a recipe for disappointment. I suspect that I am not the only person who knows this.

So my resolution (SMART, remember?) for this year is to work on changing one habit each month.

I know I can do that. The hard part is choosing the habit to change. When you have as many bad habits as I do, just picking one can be completely overwhelming.

Let’s see . . . how about exercise? Oh, that’s a great one. I could get up at 6 o’clock every morning and do an aerobic workout and top it off with some strength training,then maybe a long walk with the dogs . . .

Then again, maybe not.

If I can do a reality check before I put my plan in place, perhaps there’s a chance I might do it.

So, instead of resolving to begin with a strenuous workout every day, at an hour I’m not even alive, let alone awake, maybe it would be smarter to pledge to choose one specific half-hour to walk and then stretch.

I think I can do that. Especially if I think of it as a challenge rather than a resolution.

So, OK, here it is: I challenge myself to use one half-hour a day to move more. Even though I’ve missed a couple of days in January already, there are still enough days to set that habit in place.

And plenty of days to plan February’s challenge.