A new year, a new chapter. New goals, and hopes and dreams. We’re here in day 3 of this new year, and perhaps it isn’t going as well as you hoped it might.
Perhaps that goal you set, that resolution you made, already seems too far off course. Maybe you made a promise to yourself to start anew, to leave all those bad habits back in 2021. Maybe it was sobriety, or a bad relationship, or even the idea of starting some new, possibly healthier habits. Or at least some less destructive ones.
And maybe, just maybe, you feel like you’ve messed it all up already. We’re here in day 3, and it’s already ruined. We had a chance, we had a starting point…and we already messed it up.
So what’s the point now???
We already ruined our chance. There’s just no point.
But…maybe there still is. Maybe there still is a point, maybe there still is hope for all of those things.
If you feel that you’ve thrown away your chance, that you hoped to come into this new year with a fresh start, with goals and desires and things left behind, things to bring forward with you…you’re not alone.
So many of us feel this way. Such a common feeling amplified by a singular day on a calendar.
But we don’t have the throw it all away. We don’t have to give up. Those things that we’re all working on, those things that make us fight, that make us feel hope…those things aren’t worth giving up on.
We’re 3 days in. And I would say that I’ve also “messed things up”…but I didn’t.
I gave myself no such deadline. If I could do all of the things that I knew would improve my life overnight, if it was just so simple to say “this is it, this is my start and I’m never looking back”…if it was just that simple….I don’t think I’d have waited for a day on the calendar to begin.
If the things I wanted for myself were simply so achievable that I just…could? Well, damn. Things would be running a whole lot smoother over here.
But here’s the thing. Change isn’t instant. There is no all or nothing approach to this messy thing that we call life.
It’s all about balance and adjustments and…grace. You have to give yourself some grace. And forgiveness.
I set no unrealistic goals for myself this year because I am a firm believer in not setting anyone up for failure. Including myself.
But if you do find yourself in this position, as I’m sure so many of us do…
It’s not to late to start again. You don’t need to wait to start again. You don’t need to wait.
You messed up today. It’s only day 3 and you already messed it up.
It’s only day three.
Get up. Start again. It’s been 3 days. That’s it. Change doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen in 3 nights. So don’t fall into the false idea that you should be doing better.
As long as you keep fighting and keep getting back up again…you’re doing enough.