Today is the sixth day of January.  As we’re making our way into the new year, I wanted to stop to ask just how are you doing?

If you had high hopes as you rang in the new year for changes that you wanted to make during the new year and may have fallen short already on those changes you were doing to make, take heart!  The year is still relatively new, and you can ALWAYS start again!  So you had great intentions to eat healthier and blew it just a few days in.  That’s okay.  Get back up, dust yourself off, and start eating better today!   If you planned on drinking more water but substituted sodas or tea instead, focus today and decide that today will be your day to drink more water.

You CAN do this!

If you haven’t stepped foot into the gym, that’s okay, too.  You can exercise at home.  Just DO it, as the Nike commercial says.   Get off of that couch and walk to the beat of your favorite song.  Even if you’re walking in place, that is still exercising.  Grab a couple of cans of beans in your pantry and do some curls while you’re making dinner.  Or, my personal favorite, grab your honey and dance to your favorite tune!

Try not to focus so much on having “failed” so early on in the new year.  It’s only January 6th.  Begin again TODAY!  Right where you are!

If you were planning on saving more money this year, pay day is coming at the end of the week.  Sock some money away right off the bat into your savings account.  If you get into a habit each week, pretty soon, you won’t miss the money that you’re putting away for a rainy day.  Maybe you’re planning on saving money for that dream vacation, or you’re more practical and want to save it for new tires on your car.  Whatever you are saving for, start this week.  If you wanted to start with the first pay period in the year but missed that, just start now! 

How about this?  A gratitude jar!  Doesn’t that sound interesting?  Instead of beating yourself up already on what you’ve failed to accomplish in this new year, turn your focus on positives that have happened or that you’ve achieved since the clock struck midnight on December 31st/January 1st!   I bet that will make you feel a lot better if you think back and begin writing down good, positive, encouraging things for the past six days.  DO it!  Save those slips of paper and store them in your gratitude jar so that at the end of the year you can open that baby up and read all the goodness that this year held for you.  Or, if you are having a really bad day later in the year and need a little pick-me-up, open that jar and pull out a handful of things that happened earlier in the year that made you feel GOOD!  It will get you back on track.

I’ll be honest.  This post was as much for me as it was for you.  I’ve not exercised like I had planned.  My daughters will be my accountability partners, though!  We’ve already discussed it!  I’ve tried eating better, and I have tried drinking more water.  But we all fall off the wagon at times.  I am making better food choices, and I feel good about that.  I would like to encourage you to just stop beating yourself up!  Just get back on track.  I’ve wanted to start saving more money this year, and I will … beginning this pay period.

AND … I am most definitely going to go back over the past six days and write things down that have spoken to my heart in this new year.  Things that have made me smile, that have warmed my heart.  Things that I will want to hold on to and remember.

I will begin today.

YOU CAN, TOO!