Working Those Goals...

 #DailyCalm | Believe in your capacity to change. You've got this.

That is the prompt today from Daily Calm. Calm is the program I've been using to try AGAIN to get the hang of meditation. I actually picked it up for the sleep stories and other sleep programs. Part of my never ending search to rewire my head so I sleep more. And as it's a never ending search and it's the way my head is wired you can guess how it turned out. 

But to get access to all of the good things on Calm you have to pay for their system. And once I paid I had to get some use out of it. So...trying again at meditating, and I downloaded their daily reminder calendar for January as part of my DO ALL THE THINGS KICKSTART!

Some of them have been really interesting little prompts. Some direct you to use parts of their program you might not have. Some are just little pep talks, like this one. Because we are halfway through January and this is where most people start dropping their resolutions. January 19th is the average day of quit. By that point most people are just done. The newness has worn off, any quick gains (or losses) have already been had and now you are in the slog. The realization that to lose weight you are going to have to KEEP eating the way you have been. To get stronger you are going to have to exercise ALL THE DAMN TIME. To not drink you have to still NOT drink. 

When you start it looks easy. When you are doing it day after day it gets to be a lot harder. 

And there is the point where you wonder why you even bother. I have battled my weight my entire life. I get it where I want it for brief moments in time and then...well I'm either under or more likely over again very quickly. So why do I keep trying? Why do I even bother? Why not just indulge in a life of bon bons and relaxation? 

Well, I've talked about it. Sure, vanity is part of it, but really it's health. If I get too heavy my joints ache. If I want to live the life I want to live I need to be fit and healthy. Right now that's the driving goal to undoing the weight gain and fitness loss from 2020 pandemic time. The 2021 pandemic time needs to be getting back in shape because it's going to end. The lockdowns will be lifted. And when that happens we're going to Disneyland. I want to be able to fit comfortably in the rides and I want to be able to walk around the parks without feeling like I am going to die.

And then at some point when we figure out who can watch the cats, we will go to Hawaii. I will want to hike and kayak and swim daily. And, most importantly, I don't want to have to buy a new swim suit. I HATE buying swimsuits. Yuck.

So I have an end reason. Which helps. But you do have to believe that you can do it. 

And it's not just the basic stuff, the weight, the eating better, the staying hydrated, the quitting smoking, the not biting your fingernails, not just those sorts of changes. But the big ones too. 

Do you believe you can change?

Really change?

If I believe in anything I believe I am constantly changing. And hopefully always for the better. 

Not the core of me, I think who I am is who I am. But the pieces that I pull around that core. If I learn something new I hope I incorporate it into who I am and how I act. If the world around me shifts and new ideas come forward I hope I am able to listen to them and act on them if they are good ideas. I hope that the person I am not is not the same as the person I was ten years ago and the person I will be ten years from now. If I am then I've become rigid and unchanging and that's not really living. What a shame that would be. 

Keep learning new things, keep working to make yourself the best version of you that you can be, keep believing that you can change, keep working towards a better world and belief that the world can change as well.

That's what hope is anyway isn't it?
The belief in positive change?

Well I hope we are all holding on to that hope right now. And I hope that it helps. We could all use some positive change right now.