New Year, New You? Nah!

I can't believe Christmas is over for another year already! Just as I was getting settled into sweets and cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and long hours in front of the telly, it's been cruelly snatched from my grasp.  That, and I'm running out of Haribo.  I've enjoyed properly (and by "properly", I mean "drunkenly") catching up with my family, and with friends that I only tend to see once or twice a year because everyone's off on their own adventures in pastures new(er than where we went to school). Also, in my excitement, I've been trying to make use of every single thing I obtained in my Christmas loot from Santa.  Example:

 

Me, looking like a potato in a tea cosy and slippers after taking my beautiful, new, pink Asics and 1000-mile socks for their maiden jog... and then managing to lock myself out of the house in the freezing cold until A came to my rescue and made me coffee. Not sure why am making that face.  Can only assume is frozen in place.

So, now that Crimbo-time is pretty much over, I'm seeing the gradual drip-drip of New Year status updates filtering through my Facebook feed.  So far, they seem to fall into two opposing camps:

Camp 1 -  "As soon as the new year hits, I'm going to be a new person! All skinny and living in the gym.  Also, I will learn French and how to change colour like a chameleon.  I will be UNRECOGNISABLE!!  I shall be skinny, French and occasionally purple!"

Camp 2 - "Ugh, here come the New Year, New Me. Statuses!  They're never going to change, and I won't be able to park at the gym, because I am the boss of the Healthy Lifestyle Club, and there's no room for anyone else!"

I might be exaggerating a leedle bit, but that's the gist of what I've been reading.  Some people want to change everything about themselves, whilst others who have admirably managed to  create a regime they are content with scoff at those who want to follow in their footsteps and do the same.

Whilst I agree with Camp 2 that improvements to your way of life won't necessarily magically stick just because it's January, I don't see any harm in resolutions.  As long as you are prepared to be flexible with them, and don't admonish yourself and throw in the towel the second you inevitably stumble back into old habits. Everyone does it. Habits become habits because you repeat a behaviour until it becomes something you do more consistently than whatever you were doing before.

I believe that the end of the year is a great time to take stock of what you've achieved, and what you want to get out of the next 12 months.  I probably think this because I'm one of those cool kids who has kept a diary since I my early teens, which means I have an overwhelming compulsion to document every single thing I do.  It makes for terribly exciting reading.

It also means that I can look at old resolutions I've made myself over the years.  Let's see if we can spot a pattern!  I would offer you a prize for finding it, but I've eaten everything in my house that's not nailed down.  In no particular order:

• Lose weight
• Bite nails less
• Be less shy/incompetent around other people
• Spend less time sitting around
• Watch less TV
• Be more selfless

Etc etc.  Nothing revolutionary.  The trend?  Everything has to be less.  I think this is a common thing, especially in women.  We need to spend less time relaxing, less time thinking about ourselves and eat much, much less until we become tiny, waif-like molecules living off lettuce leaves and self judgement.  Hurrah! The year ahead is going to be spectacular! So much fun! 

We start on the assumption that we're not enough to begin with, which the logical bit of the brain (the one behind the bit that likes watching Netflix for eight hours straight and believes that after 3 pints, money isn't real) knows is... well, just bollocks, really.  Everything you achieve throughout the year is achieved by the person you already are, in the body you already have.  Here's some stuff that I'm proud of having done this year:

1. Ran 3 half marathons.
2. Got into a decent routine with the superhero runners at Run4All.
3. Maintained a blog, which I enjoy doing and am proud of.
4. Got a secure, not-too-shabby job that I'm comfortable in. 
5. Tried out and loved Outcast CrossFit, and made more friends in the process.  Impressively strong and speedy friends!

Did I need to lose half my bodyweight and become an expert socialite to do any of those things?  Noop!  I still have all my "flaws" from before - I decide that I'm terrified of socialising at the most counterproductive of times (until I forget to be), I still have a weakness for anything edible that's terrible for my health, and my knee jerk reaction to anything negative is to berate myself for it.  But, overall, I'm pretty happy with my lot in life.  Everything I've done this year has come with perks - made me fitter, slightly more fulfilled and busier.  I'm just the same as I was before this year.  Just... more!  I'm Becky Plus!  Becky.2 ... etc.  I'm like an iPhone.  I'm essentially the same, just with the occasional software update.  Or a simile that's a bit more imaginative...

Point is, there's nothing wrong with taking stock of what you have and creating a plan to push for more things that will serve to add to your life experience.  Just don't forget that it's only you who can get you all that stuff - You, exactly as you are right now!

Hmm.  I didn't originally intend for this post to be all motivational-y.  Here's my favourite terrible joke to distract you from the sentimentality of it all:

Man goes into a farrier's.

Man: Hello, do you have any jobs going?

Farrier: Depends.  Have you ever shoed a horse?

Man:  No, but I said "fuck off" to a donkey once.

Haw haw.   

I Come Bearing Gift....

Hello, Blogspot.

I have something for you. But first, I want to talk about me. Me, me, me! Bear with.

I am one of life's impossible stress-heads. Though I'm prone to bouts of childlike regression and silliness, I take pretty much everything I do WAY too seriously. Life-or-death seriously. I give too many fucks in most given situations, which has a super-fun side effect of sucking the joy out of everything I do.

I've been battling with my innate lazy creature all month, trying to get it to go to the gym, trying to get it to strive toward forging some sort of career in writing (anything, lord, help meeee!!). Trying to just make it try. I feel under immense pressure (by myself, of course. No one else would be mean enough to constantly berate me like this) to be better at everything I do.

My relationship with the gym is probably the easiest example to demonstrate this. I am not a natural fan of exercise. Once, at primary school, I even "accidentally" poked myself in the eye to get out of playing netball (I don't know either, but somehow it worked!). So, since I realised a couple of years back that I didn't want to be immobile and wheezy by my middle age, I decided I'd better keep up some kind of routine. Ever since, it's been a continual cycle of;

*lolloping around neighbourhood in trainers*

"Yeah!! I didn't die that time!! Soon, I'll be running like Flash if I keep running lots! Nothing can stop me this time!! I won't be anywhere near as bad as last time I took this up. I actually like it now! Hahahahaha!!

Ow. Stitch."



"Wow, I'm still REALLY fucking slow. Why aren't I good yet? How is that pensioner overtaking me??"



"I know, I just need a little break, take the pressure off. If I stop making such a big deal of this, I'll remember how to run for enjoyment...yeah...just a few days..."



"I'm such a fucking fatty! Why can't I stop eating?! I could go to the gym, but the idea just makes me want to eat more cake and cry...I'll go tomorrow. I'll go tomorrow."

*picks some old cheese flakes out of clothing and eats*



"I DON'T WANNA GO TO THE STUPID GYM!!!!"



"Hey remember I used to run a lot? That was fun. Might take it up again..."


See? I'm a fairly regular exerciser, but my bursts of activity come in an infinite loop of hope, optimism, disappointment, attempted self-bullshitting and then crushing self loathing. Not a fun trail to jog, skip then crawl, bleeding and weeping down. I've tried trying really hard(ish). I've tried not caring. And neither method has worked.

So, Blogspot. You've been patient so far, so I'll give you your present now. It's our new new life motto.



.....Half arsed is better than not arsed


(replace arse with ass if American).


Write it on your arms and face, tattoo it on your body, put it on post-it notes and stick them on your mum. This, my friends, is what a genius sounds like! We live in a world whose positive, sugary "you-can-do-it-follow-your-dreams" sentiments work for some, but not all. The idea of everyone always being their best person and trying REALLY hard and doing REALLY well at everything just terrifies me. If I fail at anything I give even the tiniest of shits about, I beat myself into such a pulp over it I'm that barely recognisable for a few days. Too much free time overwhelms me because I think I should constantly being doing something, anything, that will make me a better person at any given moment (i.e not a lazy, cake dribbling sloven). For this reason, I don't know how to relax. I'm incapable. And, to top it off, society tells me I have to be happy and fulfilled, or my life is worth nothing. After all, we could die tomorrow.

What is this horse shit?? Gunning after happier, better, fitter, wiser, prettier, richer, more sociable, more successful all at once just freezes me like a rabbit in the headlights. I care so much about having it all at once that I can't physically move. And I'm fairly confident that there are droves of equally stuck people out there too.

To you, my fellow rabbits, I say be happy being the sometimes-conversationalist who, instead of being the life and soul, interjects with the odd funny comment when they can. If you don't feel like you're making progress on the treadmills, just ponce about on the bikes for a bit. If you aren't a gourmet chef yet, eat a packet of cous cous with lumps of cheese for dinner. Hell, at least you had to boil the kettle to do it! Boiling is cooking, right?

What I'm saying is, don't berate yourself when sometimes you just want to do the bare minimum. Let yourself. I'm not saying don't give a shit. Just do enough to unstick yourself a little. Who knows, you might even end up actually excelling in and enjoying doing those things you avoided doing because they just seemed to immense when the pressure was on. And if you don't? Who gives a fuck? I'm not going to tell you off. I doubt your friends and loved ones will. You can't fail at life, because the only one making you feel so crappy about not hitting every single target is you, stupid.

Half-arsed is better than not arsed.

Amen.

2013: You Can Do Eet!!

Happy slightly-belated-because-I-was-hung-over-yesterday New Year!!!

If your New Year's Eve celebration was anything like mine, you spent it in a friend's house, talking way too loudly and enthusiastically in your loved ones' faces and waiting for the moment you were allowed to set the poppers off. The things that go "bang!", not the...y'know...poppers... It wasn't that kind of a party.

...Mine had a round of The Big Bang Theory board game in it, so it was better than yours. Obvs. Or sadder. Depends on which way you look at it. Whatever, my team won! Give me a big, posh "hooray!"

I have great, big, sexy feelings about 2013. Yesterday, I had nauseous, hungry and sleepy feelings, but a dangerous nap in the bath in the middle of the day (because I like to live dangerously) followed by an early bedtime has left me feeling pretty optimistic today!

One of my favourite things about the new year is making resolutions I almost never...no, wait, never keep. And up until now, (and I think that this is what most people do too) they have mostly been based around making myself a bit less shit. Here are some familiar ones that might overlap some, if not all fellow resolut...ers' (?!) January to-do lists:

* stop biting nails
* be less wobbly/rotund/jiggly/skinny-impaired than previous years
* get off arse and exercise til lady-beefcake style buff
* be less socially inept
* kill less often

Sound familiar? ... The last one was a joke, by the way.

*hastily nudges hatchet behind sofa with foot*

In recent months, I've had the odd epiphany that has brought me to my temporary sanity, and looking at these old, pretty pointless and ultimately stress inducing goals, I've realised that if I were to choose a resolution from such a list this year, I'll do what I always do. And this means sitting on the sofa, wailing and fretting about not achieving my new "goals" for a while, and then biting my nails, stuffing myself with chocolate and sleeping because it's February and I'm not Wonder Woman yet.

This year I'm doing something different. I have allowed myself two achievements that I want bragging rights to by 2014, and neither of them involve changing myself too drastically. And I know that failing to achieve them won't leave me sobbing in my jammies about what a lardy, lazy she-klutz I am. And this lack of pressure makes them feel much more achievable. By the end of the year, I want to:

*run at least a 10k race
* get paid for at least one piece of writing. Any writing.

Easy peasy! And to make me feel even better about this decision, the fates have handed me a bit of luck already! My manager overheard me talking about wanting to write anything at all for money, and instead of firing me on the spot, he's arranged for me to meet a freelancer friend for advice and lunch on Friday. I love advice! I love lunch!!

Mmm. Lunch.

But, seriously, handful of mostly anonymous readers... My soppy bit of advice (you listening, self?!), stop trying to change yourself and just get on with just doing stuff. Less worrying, more scurrying!

2013.... The Year of Doing!

*nods self importantly, gets up with purpose, heads to fridge*