My birthday is in January, so the New Year lines up pretty closely with my new year. Every December/January, magazines and websites will trumpet “25 Easy Ways To A New, Healthier, Prettier, More Successful, Taller YOU!!” And sometimes we buy it, because it’s a lovely idea. It’s beautiful to think that something magical will happen one night and **POOF**, we will wake up a new person. Someone with zero baggage and bad habits, capable of finally becoming the imaginary Perfect Person we always hoped we would be.
SPOILER ALERT: When we wake up on January 1, or our birthday, or any other of the 365 days a year, we –and everyone around us– will be the *exact same people* we have always been. I will still yell too much when my boys are fighting. I will still make a mess when I’m cooking. I will still like to exercise, but struggle to carve time out for it. The pile of laundry will still not be magically attended to by a team of fairies at night. I will still do things that annoy my husband, and he will return the favor. Our kids will still fight and do confusing, frustrating things. Things like hide their brother’s favorite snuggle blanket, causing tears at bedtime, or randomly eat out of the butter dish, or put a lego up their nose.
But GOOD NEWS! As aforementioned, you are NOT a New You. That means that you are an ever-evolving person with a growing base of knowledge and wisdom on how to handle all of the random things that come your way. You handled it when your oldest got an Airsoft BB pellet stuck in his nose, so when your youngest lodges a tiny lego in his nose, you don’t completely panic. You and your husband can tag-team a puke episode like pros. Your oldest can finally get himself completely dressed in his snow clothes and boots (and the heavens rejoiced!!). As a couple, you and your husband have taken steps to communicate more effectively. You make awesome soup. While these aren’t the things that New Year’s Resolutions are made of, they are the stuff that life is made of.
Maybe the issue is not to have goals for ourselves, because clearly goals are important. Maybe the issue is really to manage our expectations. As a type-A perfectionist (read more about that here), I’m learning that managing my expectations is sometimes 90% of the battle. We’re taking baby steps, all the time. So this year, instead of looking forward to how “perfect” I’m hoping to be in the next year–which I will most certainly fail– I’m going to look BACK and see where I’ve grown. This year, I made new friends and I tried new things. I ran less, but did more yoga. Read less, but wrote more. I spent more time outside. I cooked a lot. My living room didn’t get repainted, but my gardens looked fantastic. Growth happened in 2016, and it will happen in 2017, likely in places that I never expected.
Wishing you a year full of growth, and managed expectations. May you take time to reflect on the ways that you, and those around you, have grown.
