Resolutions and reminding yourself you're brilliant...

Hello New Year. Hello new me. 

Obviously not starting on 1st January as everyone knows that’s the day to eat all the leftover chocolate and down a shit load of full fat coke to shake off the old, hungover, 2018 me. 

But January 2^nd. Here we go. Deep breath. Well deepish.

  

I wasn’t expecting to wake up and be like, wow, I’m spiritually zenned out and motivated to run a marathon. 

I have, however, been preparing for my radical transformation.

I’ve been signing up to newsletters. Lots of newsletters. As well as diet websites, running apps and calorie counting calculators. 

These pledges for the better, improved version of myself have almost exclusively happened at about 2am when I can’t sleep. 

And today, the first day of the ‘new me,’ the only thing that’s altered is my massive inbox.

It turns out I’ve signed up to everything. 

The running everyday for a month one, the giving up sugar one, 5.2 diet, keto diet, Veganuary (how are you actually meant to say that anyway?) As well as the classic dry January, of course. 

I’m knackered just looking at all the unread e-mails, which doesn’t, incidentally, bode well with my ‘declutter in a year’ app, as I'm meant to start with sorting out my digital and social media accounts. 

By 10am, I’ve had a-fucking-nough. I can’t find my trainers and I’ve inhaled the kids’ left over crumpets without even realizing I’ve done it. 

I’m completely stressed and not sure if a glass of orange juice counts as part of a fruit only cleanse or it it’s contravening the no-sugar diet. 

And what the fuck is a coffee bullet? And how can cream and cheese make you thinner?

I think I’m losing my mind.

So instead I curl up with the kids, eat the chocolate coins my youngest has found down the back of the sofa, and decide to do none of these things.

I can’t resolve to be something I’m not. 

I like running. But not every day. 

I like veggie burgers, but also a big roast chicken on a Sunday. 

I like coffee, but not with butter and cream (surely I read that recipe wrong…)

And I like wine. I love wine. 

So this January, I suggest we just be a bit kinder to ourselves. 

Fasting every other day might work for one person, but it equally might not for the next. And actually, what the fuck does it matter anyway?

So whether you have a glass of wine in your hand or not right now, whether you’ve signed up to do a charity swim across the channel or live on raw food for the next month, remember to also give yourself a break.

 Allow your inner voice be your greatest ally.

Let her shout how brilliant you are and not how much you need to change. 

Whatever other pledges you have made for 2019, also resolve to be kind on yourself.

Happy New Year. 

MASSIVE PS... 

Thank you so much for reading my blog over the years or months, or if this is the first time, ace as well! 

I have written a novel with the same name, You Can Take Her Home Now, which is due to be published by Orion in late Spring, but you can preorder it on Amazon now* 

THANK YOU TIMES A MILLION, I WON'T LET YOU DOWN.

*I am jumping around the front room with such gusto that the pelvic floor doesn't stand a chance every time I say this out loud.