Sunday, 5 January 2014

To Resolve or Not To Resolve

Happy New Year!

This will be a super duper quick blog just to welcome in the new year and things like that. I've been quite busy since the last time I blogged (with working and Christmas and New Year's and all that) and I'm still trying to settle in to 2014 and stuff so yeah...

Anyway, now that I've had my last shift at The Body Shop, I will have a bit more time to do things and to also not do things (because going out and working is tough for someone who likes to have down time like me).

Well, today I just wanted to blog about New Year's Resolutions. I think they are silly and frankly every time I made a New Year's Resolution I would never look at it again.

I think they're silly because you should never wait for the New Year to come around for you to start something. If you truly want to change yourself, you can aim to do it tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or whenever is convenient. For example, if it's October, you shouldn't wait for the 1st of January to go to the gym, you should go whenever you can (e.g. the weekend or once you get a day that's free).

I know it's easy to say, and obviously sometimes I fall into that bad behaviour, but I really believe in trying to make a change and make goals every week or every month to really push yourself. Otherwise you'll just end up making the same New Year's Resolution every year because you slacked off one month in every time.

In some circumstances it's really hard to not wait for the New Year's. For example, when it's the start of December and you want to get fit but you know exactly HOW lazy and how much food you're going to eat during the Christmas season. I think in that circumstance it's alright, but once you stop the holiday season, you really need to get back in to it and get back into the habit of exercising and dieting and not see it as a new year's resolution, but just a normal goal.

At The Body Shop (and I'm totally not getting paid to endorse this) we have this campaign starting tomorrow (Monday 6th) called Think Positive.


It's obviously a little silly but the message behind it is quite deep. The whole campaign is about making your life better, because if individual people try to make their lives better, this could cascade out into a butterfly effect that could make the entire world a little better.

The campaign says that apparently it takes 21 days for a habit to stick, so why not do something different for at least 21 days of each month to obtain better habits (or get rid of bad habits)? In every Body Shop in Australia there should be not only that life size cut out, but also some free calendars and stuff where each month has 21 days dedicated to making a habit stick. You can write out your goals for each month, and at the end of the month you get a sticker.

It sounds kind of cheesy, but like I said, they got a really deep message and kind of cheesed it up.

Anyway, I think the idea is good. I think we should keep a diary of things we want to change about ourselves. Simple things like learning how to cook... make a pact that you will, for the next 30 days, cook something different every day (as Joyce did). Wanting to read more... make sure you read a chapter (or two) of a book every day for the next 30 days. Wanting to get fit... aim to exercise for a certain amount of time each week for the next 4 weeks, then after that increase the time.

So what are my New Year Resolutions?

  • By the end of January: do a proper sit-up (and I mean proper! The whole she-bang! Arms crossed over chest, feet flat, go slow, don't go all the way down! I watched videos on youtube and realised I was doing so many things wrong)
  • In February: read a chapter of a book every single day (I will probably do this in March when uni starts anyway, but I want to do this when I'm on holidays to prevent myself from just staring at a screen all day [ironic because I'd be staring at the screen of an ereader])
  • By the end of July: run 6 km (we have a lot of hills no excuses! I'm just superbly unfit at the moment)
  • By the end of the year: look back and say 2014 was a good one

    Most of my goals will probably overlap (like in January I can do sit ups and run and also read at the same time) but it's good to not overwhelm yourself with too many goals. It's like when you multi-task, you're not actually multi-tasking. You're just switching your attention to and from tasks, thus compromising the quality of both performances. So if you have too many goals in one period of time, you might compromise on all of them, not achieve any, give up, then be forced to write another meaningless New Year's Resolution again.

    Anyway, I totally encourage you to make your own resolutions, just don't wait for the next year to roll around before you tackle them!


    Also lastly, just wanted to do a shout out to my friends Shannelle and Uel Lim (not related to me)!

    I've been forced to keep this quiet for some time, but now it's officially been advertised! They are going to be on this year's My Kitchen Rules! You can remember them because they're the nice married Asian couple from NSW.


    (Dem Asian eyes)
    (Also not my photo)

    I'm so proud of you two <3 You guys are amazing and such great friends and you totally deserve this because you're amazing cooks!
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