New Year's Day

Today is New Year's Day.  January 1, 2011.  As all the twitter feeds and news sources will tell you, this is the chance for a new beginning.  It is a time to make promises and resolutions - a time to start fresh and new.  I have always found it interesting that the vast number of people end the old year doing all the same things they have always done (getting hammered, partying, making questionable choices, staying up too late) and then expect the calendar flip to give them the willpower to stop doing that.

I have always been one of those people.  Every January 1, I would try to tell myself that I could change things the next year.  This would be the year that I finally starting reading my Bible consistently or praying more often.  I finally would get my temper under control.  And, of course, I would lose weight.  It is the number one resolution that people make.  I made it so often that I finally stopped.  When people would ask me what my resolutions were, I would tell them I didn't make them because they didn't matter.  But, deep down inside, I hoped that somehow I would be able to do it anyway.

It really is a ridiculous effort - to put so much weight (ha ha) on one day.  But millions of people do it every year.  The problem is that when you wake up on the First, nothing really has changed.  You are the same person with the same addictions and weaknesses and history.  Your kitchen is full of the same problem foods.  There are the same holiday cookies and cakes, the same snack foods.  There probably are leftovers from the party the night before.  How can anyone expect to walk downstairs and into a new life like that?  It is setting yourself up for failure.  And that just feeds the cycle.

When the inevitable failure comes - which odds are it will - that is just more ammo in the weapons of doubt and shame.  It is another example of how this problem is too big to defeat.  You train yourself to fail.

This year is so much different for me.  This morning I woke up and realized for the first time that I could even remember, I didn't say, "Maybe this year I can lose weight."  Instead I woke up and said, "I weigh 100 pounds less than I did last year."  That was an exhilarating feeling.  I have almost gone an entire calendar year now.  I have made it through every major holiday, every possible trap and pitfall.  There wasn't a resolution to be made.  The thing is, it came through hard work and planning and discipline.  Those are the things that resolutions don't have.  It takes preparation and execution - commitment.  I find it fitting that my journey didn't begin on January 1.  It was on the 18th.  It is kind of symbolic that it wasn't a whim of a thought - it was a serious choice.

For those of you out there who are struggling, I pray that this year you are able to find victory and freedom.  Don't get wrapped up in meeting some arbitrary goal set because the calendar flipped.  Take your time and plan.  Realize this is going to be a long process.  But, in the grand scheme of things, what is a year?  It is a blip in your life.  If it takes a whole year to get your weight under control, so what?  You still have all those later years that will be better because of it.  Don't give up if you mess up on January 4.  Don't quit if you haven't lost all 30 pounds by April 15, or if you have a month with no changes.  Keep pressing forward.  It will be worth it.

Take it from a person who has lived this.  For the first time ever, I can enter the new year with a new mindset.  I'm not done yet.  But it is a lot less daunting thinking that I only need to lose 30 or 50 pounds instead of 150!  Let your resolution be that you will give yourself the chance to succeed.  Happy New Year, friends.