Day 1

I’m all in favor of not waiting for a new year as a milestone for beginning something. As I see it, for just about any goal, the best time to have started was sometime in the past, but the second best time to start is today. That said, I still like the beginning of the year as an exercise in intention-setting and a deliberate time to review and revise the goals on which I’ve already been working. My second-favorite time to do this kind of goal generation and review is my birthday. Because it is in the middle of the year, it makes for another nice time for me to do some reflection and introspection as both a mid-year checkpoint for the calendar year and a “new year” checkpoint as I begin another birth year and turn around the sun once more.

I don’t wait on new years to set goals, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the start of the new year as a way to get clear on my goals and get others to talk about their goals. Because setting resolutions (as well as not setting resolutions) becomes a hot topic in pop culture around this time of year, it suddenly isn’t weird to have a conversation with someone you don’t know terribly well or someone with whom you have strictly superficial interactions about something other than the weather or the score of last night’s sports game.

I like resolutions as a way to get past small talk to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with friends, family, and coworkers (because while I value and understand the importance of small talk, I can’t stand small talk). I learn a lot about what people care about and what motivates them by asking them about the specific things they hope to achieve by the end of the year and the broader dreams toward which they’re working. I like to believe that having conversations like these makes relationships more fulfilling, and this time of year with all the talk of self-improvement makes it easier to go beyond the surface-level, mundane exchange. Even if the resolution is something as commonplace as “eat more healthfully” and “go to the gym more,” I’ve still learned something about the person and that conversation about that goal can provide the foundation for conversations in the future around progress toward that goal. I‘ll note that much as I dislike the gym promotions and the heavy marketing of detoxes and diet plans at the beginning of the year, I do like seeing my friends feel motivated to take better care of their health overall.

So, resolutions — I like ’em. My short-list involves some actionable steps to grow professionally, improve my jiu-jitsu and judo, and approach my goal of writing a book. The thing about the new year that gets me tripping is the whole idea of how the ‘firsts’ of the year set the tone for the year. That concept stresses me out way more than any resolution.

The first day of the year is touted as symbolic down to its very first seconds. Go out among good friends. Kiss someone you love (or kiss a willing stranger) at midnight. Joyfully toast the times gone by and the times to come with some champagne bubbling in a flute. Set the foundation for the whole year by defining the quality of its initial moments. “What you do now sets the precedent for the rest of the year.”

On that note, this is how I spent the first day this year and the precedents I’m hopefully setting.

1. Instead of going out and spending bank on an expensive New Year’s Eve party, my boyfriend and I decided we’d go to a New Year’s Day brunch at a nice restaurant in Boston. Precedent set: making time for each other outside of training, dressing up a little, and spending a little money for high-quality time together.
2. In the morning, before heading to said brunch, I watched some good TV, and after having dinner, I read a little more of a good book. Precedent set: taking time to relax and unwind because I deserve it, but not consuming total “junk” media when I do.
3. Even though I was really tired after going through a strength training workout today, I managed to sit down and write this blog post. Precedent set: writing for at least an hour a day in the pursuit of strengthening the muscle that will put me on the path toward writing the longed-for book, not letting ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good,’ and not letting ‘good’ be the enemy of ‘done.’
4. Rehydrating after an extended weekend of drinking and eating actual meals instead of stringing together snacks and half-meals while overdosing on caffeine and sweets. Precedent set: drinking plenty of water and making good choices around food that set me on a path to fuel myself effectively while mitigating the triggers and contributors toward my binge eating.
5. Instead of making an excuse of being too tired to exercise and wanting to quit before I was halfway through, I finished the first of the two weekly strength training workouts I had been dragging my feet on starting back in November (when I first received the program). Precedent: finishing whatever I start, showing up even when I don’t feel like it and sticking to my extracurricular training plan to supplement my jiu-jitsu and judo.

As my previous post discusses with regard to 2018, I like the fun, fresh starts of things and the deeply satisfying endings of things. Being in the middle is where the meaning is on the journey, even as it feels like an unpleasant slog. You can’t get to the ending without going through the middle, and it’s a lot easier to quit in the monotonous middle to get another exciting start. Knowing that the novelty of 2019 will wear off fairly soon and it’ll take more than some actions on Day 1 of this year to yield a positive, sustainable pattern of behavior, I’m relishing the precious start of this new year while it’s still a start.

With high hopes for 2019,

EZ