How you can approach January resolutions in a healthy way

The phrase, “new beginnings” seems like an oxymoron. How can a beginning be anything other than new? And yet, if you’re anything like me, lots of beginnings have a history of already having begun.

Every January I sit down with my journal and my good intentions seeking to create for myself habits of good health, resolutions to work and think, live and be better. But I have noticed they are not always new. Rather, it seems to me this month is about beginning what I have already tried.

I resolve to reduce the diet sodas and drink more water. Again. I seek to be less critical and more kind. Again. To cause less harm, I choose to think before I speak. Again.

No matter how many times I begin a new, I usually revert to my old ways and the well-intended beginnings never quite reach the desired conclusions. And so, as December ended and January arrives, I begin. Again.

I used to think I was a failure for my starts and fits, my lack of success, my inability to finish what I had begun; but I have found that measure of self-judgment to be of no real benefit. It ultimately serves no purpose so that now as I sit down with my journal and good intentions, I simply acknowledge my humanness, my lack of follow-through and without too much disappointment write down the same resolutions as I have for the past several years.

I see no point in the criticism since I have actually come to respect myself for getting up to the plate and taking another swing at these small but significant acts and life changes that I believe will keep me in better physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

A friend once reminded me after all, that the true effort and reward is not so much succeeding at something that has never before been attempted. It is instead for a person to understand fully what needs to happen in order to reach one’s optimal health and to try as best as able to engage in these best habits even if they have been tried before. Even if these habits didn’t take. Even if they didn’t last.

And I agree. True strength of character and maybe even the quality of courage is not so much in trying something new as much as it is being willing to try something again.

And so, this January, I sit with my journal and all the best intentions as once more I honor the beginnings that may not be new but are at least begun again.

This story was originally published January 13, 2016 at 2:57 PM with the headline "How you can approach January resolutions in a healthy way."