Last month was “Give up your resolution Day”.  Today, I officially absolve you of your obligations and resolutions and goals that you have not done anything with.  After all, I’m the only one who really counts as far as forgiveness goes…

What?

No.  What other people think doesn’t matter.  Forgive yourself.  Forgive yourself for all the resolutions you set and didn’t follow through on.  It’s OK.

If you’re beating yourself up because you didn’t made it to the gym once, or cause your diet is stalled at page 4 of the new diet book, or your junk drawer is still filled with you know, junk….just stop.  What good is berating yourself going to do?

I love the idea of resolutions and goals.  And that’s part of the problem:  people love the idea of them.  They just don’t actually love doing the work they entail.

Why is this?  Well, people think they should be thinner.  Great.  But the process of getting thin is hard.  It requires a change in eating habits, an increase in exercise, in short: discipline.

There’s a lot of people out there who don’t do discipline.

Accept that about yourself.

It’s OK to not be disciplined.

Really.

Because when you stop feeling guilty about not having discipline, guess what?  You feel better about yourself.  And when you feel better about yourself, magical things happen.  When you feel better about yourself, you give yourself the freedom to go after the things you REALLY want, not the things you think you should want.

When you’re not feeling guilty, you allow yourself to feel happy.  You can’t be happy, fulfilled and guilty at the same time- your mind doesn’t work that way.   The guilt will weigh you down.  (There’s a theory about criminals:  if a guilty person is in the interrogation room they will be very calm, as opposed to the innocent person in the same room, who will be agitated.  When you know you’ve been caught, your mind automatically relaxes.  See what you learn from reading mystery books?)

So, throw out that piece of paper with your list on it.  Delete it from your phone.  Just be yourself.  Accept your strengths and your weaknesses.  Embrace them.

It’s Ok to not have a goal.  It’s OK to not want the same things as others.  It’s OK to be yourself, in whatever form that is.

44 thoughts on “I Release You”

  2. What every goal procastinator needs to hear! Lol. I completely agree. I guess when you get frustrated that you don’t follow through a goal, it actually defeats the purpose. Goals, after all, are for self enhancement. If we get frustrated over it, we get frustrated with ourselves thus having the tendency to go back to bad habits. Great read as always LA. xx

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  4. I love this! I hate on New Year’s everyone says they’re going to do “x, y, and z” and I know they’re not. I don’t even set those kind of resolutions anymore. I have goals, long term goals, that are realistic that I intend to keep. I think a lot of people put too much pressure on themselves to have a resolution and stick with it. It’s normal to fly off the handle and the band wagon every now and again. We’re human. 🙂

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    1. Exactly. I feel that if you want to do something, just do it. I think some people feel they “need” to make resolutions, instead of just figuring out the things that actually fulfill their lives.

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  6. That’s why I make my vision cards instead of just listing “resolutions.” I have 6 vision cards with areas I want to focus on during the year. If I get one thing crossed off each area (or 3 things crossed off 1 area or whatever) I consider it a win. No pressure there.

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  8. Not at all into setting goals, but for those who are goal setters, those resolutions can be started anytime throughout the year. Change doesn’t have to be implemented on the first day of the year. Changes can be implemented slowly. One day at a time, one item at a time. You are quite correct : beating yourself up is a no go zone. But if you really do want to do things differently, adding or deleting things from your life, start today, next week, next month. Who cares? It’s not about the time frame – it’s about just doing.

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    1. That’s exactly it. We get stuck with a bunch of shoulds, and they’re not what we really want. It takes a lot if self acceptance to get what we actually really want, as opposed to what society is telling us we want

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