Not [just] another negotiation.

Happy New Year. After fireworks, countdowns and popping champagne, what comes to mind when you think of New Years?

For me, its that dreaded time of RESOLUTIONS. Every year I make them – exercise more, eat more healthily, keep in better contact with my friends, especially those from college. Every year by the time week 1 is over, I have started to negotiate with myself on how I can compromise on my resolutions: “Humm, I had that jambon at breakfast, I shouldn't eat that cake” - 2 seconds later.. “Oh but its CHOCOLATE!” and within 5 minutes I have scoffed the lot and convinced my guilty conscience that I will start afresh tomorrow. Sometimes I do and I stick to it. However, more often than not by the time January is over, I've run out of patience negotiating with myself and have completely talked myself out of whatever I have resolved upon whether its to not eat that piece of chocolate cake or to actually write to my friends instead of trawling through all their photos on Facebook.

So the moral of the story (or in this case, blog) is that this year I made NO resolutions for 2012. None. Nada. Zilch. It feels soooo good. Its not that I don't want to lose weight, or wish I exercised more and kept in better contact, I do and I would love to actually do these things...but if I decide in January that I WILL do that all year, I know I will just fall down and once I do I find it very hard to get back on track. My mom keeps telling me that is the point of resolutions, that you fall but then you pick yourself back up – kind of like the windy, narrow, dangerous cliff-edged path that is the path of Right - you might stumble over the cliff, but there is always a little path hidden away to bring you up again (of course, you have to find it first :P )

Considering my track record, you might think I'm mad but I have set myself 2 targets for the month of January (and the month of January only!):

• Complete my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Certificate. I have completed about 60 hours already (it took me 3 months) and I have around 60 hours to go. I will give you more updates on the reasons why I am doing TEFL at a later stage – so bear with me.
  
  
• Walk 20-30 minutes every day even if it is lashing rain or extremely icy. So far – this one is going well too. I am proud that I have managed to stick to this so far, even though its only been a few days.

Something else that I am going to work on is to complete a diary for what I eat/drink. This was given to me by my sister and brother-in-law and has yet to be completed. As I said before I can talk myself out of anything! Maybe this can be February's goal!

And so the journey begins....

PS The title was inspired by the song “A way back into Love”