New Year’s resolutions are an odd thing. We find ourselves breaking them and then feeling disappointed or upset over them. I want to encourage something different this year. Something more gentle and loving. Something more realistic. I want you to set hopes instead of promises. A hope of a destination. Of where you will be in months to come. The promise comes in a much smaller form because you can’t wake up on a Monday and decide to run a marathon in the afternoon if you can’t even remember the last time you ran. Our resolutions are set too high which affects their ability to stick. Set end goals where they belong, at the end. Award yourself for the simple act of try. Award yourself for the simple action of attempt.

Resolutions tend to strip away how difficult your life-change decisions will be. Sure, there are things that benefit from a cold turkey approach but if your goal is to get in shape establishing a realistic routine will be more successful than buying a gym membership and forcing yourself to go every day. Going into 2023, please be gentle, honest and realistic. If you hit a pothole and fall off the wagon, brush off the gravel and get back on. Change is HARD. Don’t forget that. You are capable of any alterations you want to make, this much I know but the way you approach them can ease them. Believe in yourself and quit classing slip-ups as failures. Develop the mentality of scientists! I will see you in 2023. Have the best Christmas and New Year. Thank you for all the support this year. Let’s go bigger next, aye?

P.S This article here is oddly fitting and a good read for New Year's Resolutions despite it having little to do with them.

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Now let’s have a proper Christmas song to close us out. Play it loud. Learn the lyrics then just yell it off a balcony somewhere. Take it easy out there.