Anyone who knows me will tell you that I love resolutions or “goals with intentions”. I faithfully make them each year and quite often at random points throughout the year. September “rezzies” (as some from the North West of England may say), are always a favorite – going back to when I was a teacher in a previous life and the start of the English school year.
This year was no exception – I even categorized my resolutions with self-care and wellness as the over-arching themes:
- Fitness
- Pleasure
- Life
- Professional
What could possibly go wrong? Well, in hindsight January did not go exactly to plan resolution-wise it has to be said. Life rudely got in the way as it tends to do (see category three above). January did not start ideally as I was full of a cold for what felt like weeks – it was hard enough to breath clearly let alone embark on a rigorous new exercise regime (see category one above). Work was crazy (see category four) – I had not really factored in single-handedly preparing for company-wide annual performance evaluations in February and all that would entail. On the personal front there were a whole lot of unforeseen moving parts which impacted my ability to switch off and “be present” – one of my key category two goals.
Rightly or wrongly, this is all resulted in my goals taking a back seat – there was always something more important in my mind. Talking to colleagues about their SMART* goals and what they accomplished last year it is apparent that this often happens. Personal goals are often less of a priority than the other deliverables we have committed to – after all as someone told me last week “we are only letting ourselves down in those instances”. Let’s flip that around for a moment and consider if we always made ourselves our number one priority. Just imagine what that would look like and how it would make you feel.
I am not beating myself up about how January turned out, I have reflected on what went well overall and what I need to do in February with my lessons learned from January. I even did a little Business Process Re-engineering on my resolutions in January – identified what needed improving and made modifications accordingly – mostly to help manage my own expectations. Successful self-care when I was unwell and handling everything else that life seemed to be throwing my way, was going for a walk around the block to get some fresh air (and fitbit steps), doing my recycling, starting a new book for pleasure and taking the time to paint my nails. Does not sound much admittedly but I came to the realization that it did count as I was deliberately making time for myself.
The moral of this story? Don’t beat yourself up if your goals with intentions have gone off-piste, consider what you have achieved during the dark, devilish month that is January**. Modify your goals as needed for February and consider what success at the end of the month will look like for you. Most of all be kind to yourself and do something however small to make yourself your priority today! Remember there’s always March’s rezzies to look forward too..
*At netlogx, team member wellness is very important. Wellness is one of our key themes for 2019, building on our already robust wellness program. Our team member-lead wellness committee work tirelessly to ensure we have wellness initiatives and competitions throughout the year. Additionally, we offer team member an additional $100 a year to encourage them to participate in something wellness-related. Every team member is also encouraged to include a wellness-related resolution as part of their 2019 SMART goal setting to help keep wellness a priority throughout the year. For more information on wellness at netlogx reach out to [email protected].
**I walked a total of 206,503 steps in January, which was 71,798 more than the previous month! How is that not successful??