New Year, Same You!

“New Year, New You” is a great tagline, but it leaves out a very important part of the process. It leaves out the journey, it leaves out the struggle, and it leaves out the work. “New Year, Same You” is much more sound and true of a statement.

Granted I am all about the hope of New Year, and love people’s zest for achievement. This first week/month of the year, gyms all over will see more unique faces than they will see all year. But, then this zest fades away, and all are back to old habits.

Maybe this year put things in perspective a bit. This year I will work on myself each day. I will wake up each morning and decide to make this day different. I will make this day better than the last. We all have things we want to accomplish and realize in our lives. The recognition of not having that in your life is important, but the recognition of the work is just as important in my eyes. Admit to yourself that you have some things to change.

Expect the work, expect the struggle, wake up each day and know that there is something out there waiting for you, but you have to go get it. Exist in the place of effort. Your ability to achieve something is much more related to you affinity to work hard, than it is related to anything you are just born with.

Next year at this same time, we can have this same conversation as we reflect on the past year and look forward to the next one on our doorstep. Or, we can just realize that from one year to the next is just one more day to get up and work towards building your life. Then, the conversation next year takes on a different meaning, it becomes a check in point of a much grander plan. It becomes a commercial in an incredible movie that is your life. It is a water break on the way up a mountain, not the same camp looking up at the mountain off in the distance that we have all been to a thousand times.

“New Year, Same You,” but only for today my friend. Tomorrow will be better, and 365 tomorrows later we can laugh at all the fun we had on the journey. Thats the way to make a life.

 

Danny Lesslie

@dannylesslie