The Power of New - part one

It's a new year! I spent yesterday, like many other people all over the country, meal planning and prepping for the start of a new clean eating plan. (I dislike the term "diet.") Why is it so popular to harness the energy of the new year to start new healthy habits? I like to think it's a free jump start, like hitching your wagon to the universe's team that's already setting out into the new. The energy carries us a little further, perhaps, than if we had picked any old Wednesday to set out. 

There's a danger here, though. When the new lets us down (spoiler alert! the new will likely be very much like the old) we must find the power within ourselves to keep going. We must remember why we set out into the new, full of hope. If we falter, we must keep going. We must remember, as Courtney Carver so pointedly reminds us in her book Soulful Simplicity, "sometimes you have to do the things you don't want to do so you can do the things you want to do." Oh how I wish I didn't need to give myself that tough love, but it's true. I want to be healthy and have less pain. This means I need to lose weight and not eat so much junk food. When my desire to be healthy starts to outweigh my love of junk food, I will start to reach my goal. The key is figuring out how to make it pleasurable and sustainable. (When you figure that out, let me know?)

This is true of any new habit we are working on, not just food. Flossing every day, exercising, meditating, whatever healthy goal we are working toward has the same need.  We must want to result enough to put in the work. And we must be gentle with ourselves and find a way to make it at least a little fun. So that we want to keep going. Forever. 

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How are you using the energy of the new year? Let me know in the comments! 

Meet Tully, our newest addition. He's an absolute grouch, but every once in a while I can get him to be silly...