New Year, New You - Don't believe the hype!

After the year we’ve just had, the last thing I’m going to do is the hard sell on new year, new you.  Over the next few weeks you’ll be blasted from all sides on how to lose weight, how to find a new job, how to stop smoking, how to survive dry January, how to change your life, how to get fit and a whole host of other things to supposedly find the new you.  You know by now that I don’t believe in setting new year resolutions in that kind of way, so I’m not going to add to your pain. 


However, having said that, I do believe it’s always good to have something to focus on and despite everything I do feel like the start of a new year is a good time for a ‘refresh’.  But hey, let’s take things super slow shall we and not overload ourselves more than necessary this year. 


Personally, I’m looking no further ahead than the first month of the year and I’ll be easing myself in gently and with kindness, and focusing very much on those things in my control and that make me happy.  The simple things in life such as:

  • Going for a run or walking in the beautiful countryside 
  • Having a laugh with friends
  • Drinking a damn good coffee 
  • Reading an inspirational book
  • Practising my French 

My planning will be done on a weekly then daily basis so that I’m not looking too far ahead. I want to make the most of every day and focus on things I enjoy. 2020 taught us that you never know what’s round the corner, so in 2021 I’m going to roll with the punches and deal with things as and when they happen. There’ll be no planning of events and holidays until I know there’s a real chance of them actually happening and they will .... I just don’t know when right now so I’m not going to worry about it. 


This doesn’t mean I won’t be challenging myself with some distinct goals, I most certainly will be.  I really missed my races in 2020 so I'll be setting myself some running goals, whether that’s in an official organised race capacity or not. 


As with every year, I have a ‘theme’ and for 2021 it will be ‘Simplify - Focus - Finish’. I’m going back to basics and it’s going to be about the small wins in life, in the words of Dave Brailsford it’s the ‘marginal gains’ and the 1% improvements over time that add up to the big changes. 


On 1st January we were still in the middle of a pandemic, we now have Brexit to deal with and we still have the small matter of climate change to ‘fix’ and a whole heap of other sh*t that the world keeps throwing at us. But, the one thing that we can continually change and improve is our own mindset so let’s start there and the good times will follow. 

AIM to have a better year and do your best in every situation, that’s all you can do and it will be enough. That doesn’t necessarily mean trying to make it all sunshine and rainbows every day. It just means making things better in some small way even when you’ve had a sh*storm of a day. Because those days will still happen, it’s how you deal with them that makes a difference to your life. 



#2021

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