Last year was the first year that I set a new years resolution that I kept.  I always viewed resolutions as cheesy, things made to be broken, or just a waste of time.  In December of 2013, as the new year approached, I felt like I was coming into a year of renewal.  With Matthew just over 18 months old and personally being one year post shoulder surgery, I sat reflective of how difficult the last year had been.  I had a heavy year at work, Jon and I were raising two adorable yet time intensive little ones, and I had dedicated almost all of my free time to recovering from my surgery.  It felt like I was just hanging on.

I decided that the upcoming new year was a time for a change, time to dedicate more of my free time to myself, and time to regain my love of exercising and feeling better about my health.  It took me a few weeks to overcome my historical bias against New Year’s resolutions, but ultimately I decided to take the leap.  I resolved to workout half of the days in 2014, 183 days to be exact.  At the time, it seemed unachievable as exercise wasn’t a part of my routine.  I didn’t have a plan other than to try to workout 3-4 times a week, and to hold myself accountable each month as versus just the annual goal.  One of the most game changing decisions was to report my status on the resolution once per month on Facebook…nothing like a social announcement to hold you accountable.

And, I made it.  On December 31, 2014, I worked out in the morning to complete my 183rd day for the year.  There were moments of stress, pressure, but most of all accomplishment.  Ironically, I spend most of my professional life setting goals for myself at work, and planning what it takes to get achieve these goals, yet meeting this goal was one of my sweetest accomplishments in a long time.  This is because I not only met the goal, but I learned to love being healthy and working out again.  Better than that, my kids learned that working out is a part of what their mom does.  And today, January 7, 2015, after a week of no exercise and some well deserved rest, I want to keep going.

To resolve means a lot of things, but one is to make a definite and serious decision to do something.  In hindsight, I am a woman who resolves a lot.  My historical baggage on the New Year’s resolution is gone.  January provides a wonderful time to look at what I need in my life, and set the goals I have for the year ahead and make them happen.