Happy New Year, my loves! I hope that your 2018 is off to the best start. If you’ve been reading LiveLifeWell for a while, you might know that New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday. There’s just something about the new beginning that brings me so much excitement and joy. While I love the fresh start that we get when the clock strikes midnight on January 1st, I don’t do new year’s resolutions anymore. I’ve found that for me, they are always short lived, likely because they’re over the top. Although I don’t set unrealistic goals for myself anymore, I do always take some time to reflect and do some soul searching about what things, activities, and people brought me joy during the past year and what things, activities, and people brought me pain. During this year’s reflection, I came up with 3 self destructive habits that I decided it was best that we all leave in 2017.
Making promises we can’t keep: We all fall into the trap of making promises to ourselves (and others) that we know good and well that we can’t (or won’t) keep. This is exactly why I don’t make new year’s resolutions: I don’t want to set myself up for failure. In 2018, I’m done setting the bar too high for myself. While I do think it’s healthy to have high standards, having unrealistic standards is never a good thing. Setting deadlines that are impossible to meet, stacking your to-do list with an impractical number of things, and promising yourself that you’re going to do whatever task everyday no matter what are all self destructive habits. I vote that we leave these habits in 2017 and in 2018, we give ourselves a little grace.
Comparison and unhealthy competition: If I’m honest with you guys, this is something that I struggled with a lot in
2017 and I’ve prayed and prayed that God will remove any unhealthy competitiveness from my heart this year. While a little bit of competition can be a good thing, when it gets out of control and we start comparing ourselves to others, it’s definitely self destructive. This year, I urge you to join me in removing yourself from situations that breed comparison, whether that mean you need to unfollow a few people on social media or that you need to do some soul searching about whether or not a relationship you have is truly genuine. It’s so important to remember that God made each of us unique and that he has a purpose and a plan for each of our lives.
Apologizing for being ourselves: One of my close friends shared a quote on Instagram the other day that said, “In 2018, I’m done putting LOL after my statements. If I said it, I meant it!” I know I’m not the only one who’s guilty of putting LOL after a statement that I really meant 110% just to spare someone else’s feelings. In 2018, let’s stand on what we say, what we believe, and who we are. I spent a lot of 2017 apologizing for being me. I apologized for being busy, I apologized for being an introverted extrovert (and this warrants its own blog post), I apologized for being anxious, and I apologized for my feelings. In essence, when we apologize for these things, we are apologizing for being us, and there’s nothing healthy about that. Let’s all commit to leaving that self destructive habit behind and being unapologetically ourselves in 2018
Let’s all focus on being our best selves this year. Let’s love, let’s laugh, and let’s LIVE. Cheers to 2018!
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