New Year's Resolutions

Also, super side note: My hair is buzzed on
one side and I have Psyclon Nine's new album
SIGNED BY NERO!!

HELLOOOO!

I’m finally back after such a long, crazy hiatus. Here’s my main news:

I FUCKING FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT OF MY NOVEL PROJECT!

…

HOLY SHIT!

It’s around 110,000 words, 150 pages on Word. I’ve been working on this novel project for longer than I’ve had this blog. The first draft is only step one in a long process, I know, but it’s the farthest I’ve ever gotten in novel writing. Following the lead of Stephen King, I won’t allow myself to start the second draft until January 27^th (6 weeks after I finished the first draft). That day can’t freaking come soon enough.

It was very jarring to go from writing over 750 words a day for two months straight to having absolutely nothing to work on creatively. I went a bit manic, filling the time I’d previously used for frantically scribbling chapters to…write on my dance room wall, re-read and take notes on Paradise Lost and Frankenstein, and make about a dozen pieces of jewelry, another activity I’m teaching myself. Come the beginning of 2014 (er, tomorrow) the pendulum of my focus will swing back to dance and the physical realm, and so it goes from one obsession to another. Eventually I’d like to strike a balance between the two, but for now, I’m just enjoying my obsessive swings.

My wall...I do love my quotes.

Anyway, on to the meat of my post.

Despite having created (and accomplished!) goals for 2013 and doing the same for 2014, I’m actually not a fan of the whole New Year’s resolutions thing. When I worked at Booky Wooks, our January displays were full of healthy cookbooks and yoga mats, and our lines were packed with people buying books on the new fad diet (Paleo and the “Shred” diet, as I recall.) By mid-February, those books made up most of our returns. In late December and early January, my Pinterest page is flooded with motivational pictures of thigh gaps and photoshopped six packs with messages like “A year from now, you’ll wish you had started today.”

I’m all for having goals, and I’m all for making changes in your life. But the New Year’s Resolution (NYR) has become this overly idealistic monstrosity of an event where people force themselves into making difficult and, honestly, unrealistic lifestyle changes. Everyone gets all hyped up for them and hurl themselves headlong into hardcore change in January…and then when reality catches up to the Rocky training montage daydream they’ve built up, they crumble. All that enthusiasm dissolves after a few bumps in the road; the dreaded “wall” in weight loss, sore muscles, a coworker with a box of donuts. By February, most of my friends are eating cookies, their gym membership cards gathering dust. I’m limiting my metaphors to diet and exercise, but it’s the same way with any big change you try to force yourself into so suddenly.

In my opinion, NYRs tend to fail because ambition and enthusiasm, while great, are not proper substitutes for planning and discipline (especially discipline.)  Like all time-based events (Lent, New Year’s, Nanowrimo, etc), getting revved up about it is a double edged sword. The adrenaline-like surge you get from enthusiasm is a fantastic motivator, but it’s short-lived and, if you’re not careful, it can make you dive head first into something without laying the groundwork for success.

In my opinion and experience (in all my 20-something years of wisdom), if you want to succeed in making a big life change, here are some guidelines that have helped me out:

Don’t do it for New Year’s. Or rather, why not start now, or whenever you have the idea? I completely understand the instinct to make an event of a big change. We mark occasions like crazy: Weddings, anniversaries, holidays, etc; in hopes of maintaining its significance; making a “thing” out of it. We feel like if we get up on a podium and shout out to the public: I AM SLAPPING A TITLE ON THIS!, it puts pressure on us to actually do what we’re going to say. But here’s the thing: It doesn’t work alone. Divorces happen no matter how huge the wedding was, anniversaries are still forgotten. Public resolutions go unachieved. If you want to make a big life change, then make it. Now. To yourself, because you’re doing it for yourself. Waiting to make an occasion out of it is often just procrastination in another form. Have a support system or a few Accountabilibuddies (hehe) if you want them, of course, but do it now. It’s not like support systems only come once a year.

Start small and change gradually. I’ve seen it a million times and have done it myself. You get excited about getting fit, eating better, writing that novel, and come January you are all in with 90 minute workout sessions, eating nothing but fruit and celery, pounding out 10,000 words a day. This, in my opinion, is the reason most NYRs fail. Going all balls to the wall about huge changes is the perfect recipe for a swift burnout. Big lifestyle changes on this level take time to make. The water’s ice cold, and that makes you want to just dive in, get it over with, and adjust. But dude, there are rocks at the bottom of this pond (sea, lake, pool, pick your bad metaphor.) This is something that you have to wade into and gradually adjust. If your resolution deals with exercise, start with a half hour of something strenuous, a workout, at your level of fitness. Sore muscles are great signs of progress, but too much too soon and you’ll quickly be saying “fuck it.” If you want to eat healthier, do it gradually.* When I was finishing up Demetrius and Chloe, I made my word quota at least 750 words a day. Not too daunting for the hard days, and I easily surpassed it on the good days. I finished ahead of schedule. There’s no reason to go in dry with changes. Take your time, use some foreplay, lube it up. You’ll get there.

Yep. Went there.

Be. Disciplined. This is where enthusiasm eventually fails. There will be days when you don’t even want to look at a yoga mat or you can’t stop thinking about cheesecake (Mmm…) or you truly believe you will strangle somebody if you don’t have a cigarette right now (quitting smoking being another popular NYR). You will have no enthusiasm. No amount of motivational Pinterest posts will bring it back. Your brain will take a million mental twists and turns to justify letting it slide.

You have to do it anyway.

Now you’ll be going in dry. And it will suck. There will be days (weeks, months) like that. But you’ll just do it, like Nike tells us to, and the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment for having done it will lead to less and less rough days.

But again…you have to do it.

That’s all I have for you, my darling invisible/imaginary readers. I have a ton of posts planned for next year. Happy 2014!

Hugs and kisses,

Dee

*There’s a belly dance “life” book by Neena and Veena Bidasha that has a great gradual plan for substituting one section of “bad” food (sweets, soda, junk foods, etc) with healthier food one week or so at a time. I think it’s a great starting point for a better diet for life, not just the short term, though in my opinion they can be a bit extreme at points (a weekly grapefruit fast? Yeah, I’ll get right fucking on that…)