So… about those New Year’s resolutions…

How is 2019 shaping up for you so far I wonder?

Have you still got that New Year motivation and frisson of excitement at the all possibilities that the next 12 months could offer?

Or have your good intentions already fallen by the wayside?… and if you’re really truthful, you’re a bit scared that the end of 2019 will roll around and you’ll be stuck exactly where you are now, just like you were last year…

If it’s the latter, you might be feeling that way because you’ve tried to change things in the past and found yourself falling short of the finish line. If you didn’t reach the goals you set yourself, it can feel easier to stay where you are rather than risk that feeling of failure.

Same old same old might be boring, but it’s also comfortable, easy, requires less effort.

January is a time when many of us do a bit of a life audit and identify areas we’d like to improve. Looking back over a year that has just gone, it’s easier to focus on what didn’t go right rather than celebrating what did, the negative weighs heavier than the positive for some reason.

So we set ourselves some goals, resolutions, challenges… whatever you want to call them, and the overarching outcome is to feel better.

It might be disguised as something else – making more money, getting fitter, changing your job… but the bottom line is that you want to feel better than you do now, otherwise why would you want to do anything?

But if you stop and think about it for a minute, if you’re not feeling good, how often do you feel like doing anything?

It can be a Catch-22 situation.

If you’re lucky, you might use your current situation as a push off point to launch you towards your goals, getting out of pain can be a good motivator. But as soon as you’re out of that situation and feeling a bit better, you revert back to your old behaviours and before you know it, wallop, right back down where you were.

What if you decided that you were going to feel better first, not when you’ve reached whatever goal you’ve set yourself?

Now there’s an idea!

If you take steps to feel better first, before you embark on any change, you are more likely to be able to deal with any setbacks on your journey (and there are always setbacks of one sort or another) and more likely to achieve what you set out to do.

It is within all our power to feel a bit better RIGHT NOW.

If that’s the case, WHY WOULDN’T YOU?!

Find little ways of lifting your spirits as you go about your day.

There are plenty of things you can do that aren’t time consuming or expensive. The important thing is to do this consistently.

Maintaining those good feelings is more beneficial than only doing it when you’re feeling a bit down… it takes a lot more effort to get yourself out of an emotional trough than it does to keep your spirits up on a daily basis.

P.S. If you need some support to help you feel good my free facebook community, The Brave You Sisterhood, will give you just that. Ask to join here.