New Year New What?

I hate new years.

I hate when I'm faced with the question, "What will you achieve this year?" The truth is, I can never accurately answer that question. What are my plans? What goals do I want to set for myself?

I hate new years because I hate change. I hate saying goodbyes to the things I found comfort in. Even toxic and unhealthy relationships, bad habits, guilty pleasures, damaging addictions, things in which I found solace within my unpredictable and stressful world are hard to let go of.

I rarely look to the future. I tend to only focus on and live in the moment and the moments that make me smile I hold on to and treasure them.

Pleasure is fleeting, happiness is subjective and resolutions are in truth, limiting. I honestly hate resolutions. We set them for ourselves only to abandon or change them later. We're faced with disappointments when we feel we wasted a whole year and didn't achieve them. Every day we spend, we let ourselves down a little more when we find that we are no closer to them than the day before. I find it discouraging that many people believe resolutions determine the success or failure of how we lived another year.

We as humans look to each other for ideas and motivation. We naturally imitate and adapt to our environments and the people around us.

I envy those goal oriented people who know exactly what they want and tend to get it. I long to be like them. They always seem to have it perfectly together while I am imperfect, flawed and broken. However, each day I find a new way to live and somehow be better than I was yesterday.

A month has gone by and in February I am no closer to knowing the perfect inspirational answer to the question; "What will you achieve this year?" Even though I may not be able to answer this question, within the past month I have had time to reflect and there has been one thought I keep circling back to. It has been prevalent in my mind, my soul, my very being, and will hopefully serve as my guiding force for many years to come.

I want to live.

I guess you can call that my one and only resolution. I feel as though we focus too hard on what we haven't achieved and the things we don't have. So hard that we forget about what we currently have. And that's life. Life is unpredictable, challenging, painful and beautiful. A limitless ocean of vast and boundless opportunities. There's nothing wrong with setting resolutions for the new year. But in my experience, resolutions can change and we can set new goals for ourselves every day no matter the time of year.

Starting a new year is all about steeling our resolve and taking that plunge into change, growth, letting go and opening ourselves up to what's new. It's all about saying goodbye. Goodbye to the people that only brought negativity to our lives, those same people who look down their noses at us as they ask us the question; "What is your New Years resolution?" The people who pass judgement and belittle us when they don't like our answers. The ones who gossip like pigeons amongst themselves at our expense when we don't reach the standards and expectations because naturally, we want to give good, solid answers. We want to tell them about all the success we aspire to reach within the year.

In 2018, I was faced with people like that. Yet also within that year, I broke free of limitations and those very same people. That was the year I started on my path to a better, stronger version of myself and in the end, I said goodbye to the old me.

It wasn't hard letting go. Being a single, unemployed mother of one, I was surrounded by many people who judged and looked down their noses at me. Naysayers who would constantly tell me that I can't.

You can't live the life you want to because you're a parent now.

You can't do what you want because you have to stay with your son.

You're fat and will never have the body you used to and you'll never lose the baby weight.

Why are you asking for help? I bet you wish you hadn't had that baby.

It was so disheartening to hear and be surrounded by all of that negativity. I found myself struggling to find my self worth, confidence, and motivation to be able to say that I can. I would look at my little boy hoping I would find the answers in his innocent face and in finding none, would only feel like more of a failure each day. Until one day it all clicked.

It wasn't a sudden epiphany or realization. It was a gradual, slow build, a steady climb. It began with the decision to finally stop feeling sorry for myself and do something. The truth is, for the longest time leading up to the year 2018, I had been doubting, restricting and limiting myself. Constantly hearing the words I can't had me believing that they were actually true.

But I had finally heard enough. I chose to ignore them all and I started to work on one little goal at a time.

The first goal was losing all the baby weight. I had to start with a healthier lifestyle and it required hard work. Being a stay at home mom, I had grown too comfortable and had severely let myself go. I was nearly 200 pounds in the beginning of 2018 (yikes) and I was at the very bottom of my self confidence and self esteem. My battle with depression made the journey even more difficult. But with each passing day I aspired to be more active than I was the day before and I worked that into a pattern. I cut out the things that were bad for me, those indulgences that added to that crushing weight that brought me down and little by little it started to pay off.

The second goal was landing that first job. I had spent so long depending on others and being the pushover that everyone could take advantage of because I barely had anything to my last name, that I had severely held myself back by believing that I wouldn't be successful in anything I tried.

Amazingly enough, I ended up reaching two goals in one. In the process of finally dragging myself from my destructive black hole of self pity and fear of failure, I managed to land that first job within a week of job searching.

Leading up to that point I had already began to undergo changes from within. New life had began to revitalize and invigorate me, push my body to move and stop laying around waiting for someone or something to save me. I was more active and had found new interests that reignited my passion and pulled me from the house every day, toddler in tow. When I started working, that was the final push that I needed. Soon after, the rest of the pounds began to shed and with them, my insecurities, doubt, pessimistic outlook on life and the certainty that I can't.

By 2019 I had successfully lost 50 pounds. But I had gained my confidence and sense of self in place of that weight. Reaching a weight loss goal was a huge boost to my self esteem. And the most rewarding result of all was feeling the satisfaction of being able to look those naysayers in the eye with the knowledge that in spite of their promises that I would fail, I still achieved what they told me I wouldn't be able to.

Sure, the job I was working at wasn't the dream career that I aspired to have. Sure, I wasn't getting paid a whole lot of money. But I gained many new experiences in the time I worked.

I remember when I first started the job, I was so nervous and worried that I would mess up my first day. I had never worked a job before and kept telling myself that I was going to fail before I even started. But guess what? I tried and I excelled. I worked hard as if it were a 5 to 6 figure job. I had the opportunity to meet and get to know new people and I finally overcame my shyness when it came to being around strangers.

I pushed myself harder than ever that year and all that negativity that I had been drowning in for years fueled my passion and determination to prove them all wrong. I loved being able to finally depend on myself for once, provide for myself and my child, and being proud enough to not ask anyone for anything. A pride and luxury that I couldn't afford before. It was truly liberating.

Last year was terrifying. It kicked off with the devastating loss of a sports legend Kobe Bryant and his 13 year old daughter Gianna, along with seven others in a plane crash. And of course we were introduced to a new horror, a soon to be pandemic that would claim the lives of thousands.

I found myself facing challenges in 2020 that seemed impossible to win. There were times where I definitely wanted to give up. I lost my job due to COVID-19 and had to once again look for a new source or sources of income. I started a trading venture and blew my account, I ran through money that I should have saved, we lost our cat Blacky rest his sweet soul. I found myself falling and stumbling constantly and there were moments where I wanted to just stay on the ground and simply not get up. Trying to find a new job in the midst of a growing pandemic also proved to be a frustrating struggle.

But in the face of adversity and unwelcome change we have a tremendous number of opportunities to grow and become stronger. Every new year is a new start. Every clean slate is the chance to begin anew, a chance to become a better version of ourselves. And every failure introduces a possibility of new success.

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall". -Nelson Mandela

In the process of living this year and every year after, I hope that I will also soar to new heights, push my limits and adapt to the changes the new year brings. I want to be able to accept that I am so perfectly imperfect and not allow any negative experiences to define me. So with that being said, when you're faced with the questions; "What is your New Years Resolution? What will you achieve this year?" I would hope that you would reflect on a time where even when things didn't go as you expected them to, even when the year has come to an end and you haven't achieved a single new years resolution, you still became a stronger, better version of yourself. You created your own success, and still took the time to live.

And you can do it again. We are our own worse critics and we only limit ourselves. We have to remember to live, live without fear of tomorrow, without knowing whether we'll reach the summit. We have to live for ourselves and the people we love and those who love us in return. As long as we remember to do that, we can never be discouraged or limited by resolutions. We can say up yours, to those naysayers who believe that resolutions determine the failure or success of how we choose to live our lives.