Happy New Year, friends!
I was looking at a handful of mini beauty products while tidying up before the year end, and it suddenly struck me that these beauty brands might have gotten the right idea.
The idea behind these mini-sized beauty products, or what might be known as “sample-sized” products is this – they are a smaller version of the full-sized version, to allow you to test and try a product, scent or colour, before committing to a full-sized product. That they are portable, is really a secondary consideration.
Now, think about applying that to everyday life.
Not quite the twist in the tale you were expecting were you? 😀
The new year always brings a flood of new ambitions and goals. Everyone wants to lose a little more weight, to exercise more, to pick up a new skill; in short, to do things that don’t deliver results in the short term. It’s easy to see how one can be demoralized and fall off the bandwagon after a few days or weeks when you don’t get the results you want immediately.
How many of you have signed up with a gym in the new year, only to find, 3 months on, that you don’t even know where your gym shoes are? I’ve been guilty of this, and gyms know this, so they take advantage of your vulnerability at the beginning of the year, to make up commit to a year-long package. The only person who wins is the gym, who’s laughing all the way to the bank.
So, how about taking a cue from the minis and deluxe samples that so many of us love to hoard because “they’re so cute!” and “they’ll come in handy when I travel! (which may be never, but they’re so CUTE!)”?
Instead of committing and pledging to do something big at the start of the new year, when you’re raring to go, and feeling guilty and have all these lofty ambitions and goals in your head, instead, test out the idea or notion, by starting small. Sample it first, if you will.
If your new year resolution or goal is to go to the gym more often, sign up for a monthly package first and see it fits in with your lifestyle. Can you commit to going for a month? Is it more hassle than it’s worth? Do you not have the time? Perhaps you hate going to the gym – I do! 😛 So, find something else you enjoy – exercise isn’t restricted to the gym.
If your new year resolution is to eat more healthily, there’s no need to go mad and jump on the “clean eating” brigade immediately with tasteless chicken breasts and 7 day meal preps – bleurgh 😛 Go at it slowly. Include more vegetables in your diet, cut back on sugars, drink more water (sugary drinks don’t count) and you’ll get there eventually.
If your new year resolution is to save more money (goodness knows, we all need to!) start with a piggy bank, or a jar. Fill it with loose change as you empty your pockets or wallets at the end of a day or week. Pay yourself first at the beginning of the month, putting the money into a separate savings account that’s hard to touch. For every item you wanted to buy but don’t, put the amount or a portion into your savings account. It might surprise you just how it can add up and help you achieve your goal more quickly.
As clichéd as it sounds, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you won’t accomplish your six-pack, ideal weight, or financial success overnight. Start small, take baby steps and persevere, for that is truly what will bring success.
Did you make a new year’s resolution this year? How did you do in previous years?
For myself, I don’t make resolutions. But I do have goals I set myself, and I’m taking my own advice, and sampling it as I go! 🙂 For 2017, I just want and wish for us all a year filled with joy, hope, beauty, fun, love and lots of laughter. Anything else that comes along will be a bonus 🙂
xoxo
Paris B
Hahaha love the way you tied travel sized beauty products to new year resolutions! I don’t do resolutions anymore. Goals – measureable ones – make more sense. Eg for yonks I had “exercise more” as my resolution and y’all know that’s just wishful thinking. ? Now it’s “do the X km race at (insert month) in under Y mins”. This means that I’ll need to train for the race, which means I’ll need to exercise more, which is part of the “exercise more” resolution anyway. Win!
Give me a chance I can tie beauty in to anything! HAHA 😉 I think short term goals that lead to long term goals are really the best way to go about it. In many cases, long terms goals don’t really give us any results and that’s what makes it demoralizing. So, as you’ve said, being able to run X km in Y time is achieveable and gives us something to work towards. Just “will run more” doesn’t give us anything to work towards and that makes it easy to slack off. Here’s to longer runs in shorter times for you Tine!
Hi Paris, happy new year! It’s so true what u said. Take baby steps first. Wishing u a blessed year ahead!
Thank you Pauline! I hope your year will be an amazing one! 😀
Happy New Year, Paris!
LOL at the gym subscription. It’s so true. Beginning of the year, the gym is so packed. Until about March, I’ll have a quiet gym again. We regularls call those the resolution crowd. Hahaha! I promised myself to workout consistently, and it’s the one resolution I stuck to. So, I’m still going to stick to it but the other thing that I can’t seem to stick to is eating healthily 90% of the time. I suppose I’ll get there slowly.
Here’s to a great 2017 for all of us. Cheers!
Eating healthy is always a challenge here. I mean we have all that amazingly good food to eat right? Most of which are unhealthy unfortunately, but SO GOOD! LOL! I think working out is easier to stick to once you develop a routine and start seeing some results, however those results manifest themselves. I am still working on getting moving more consistently, but will eventually get there. Wishing you a 2017 filled with joy, happiness and a more fit self ahead! 😉
Great advice!
When I’m procrastinating, I’m often told to just do it for 15 minutes – just get started.
Happy New Year!
That’s such good advice Kuri! I must bear it in mind. 15 minutes isn’t a hard goal to achieve 😀 Happy new year my dear!
Happy New Year, Paris! 🙂
Happy new year to you too ML! 😀
HAPPY NEW YEAR AGAIN, PARIS!
Great analogy with the sample sized products! I stopped making resolutions years ago because I tend to forget them and I always think it’s just a fancy term people like to use and ignore it at the end of the year if they don’t achieve their resolutions.
But yesterday, I gave it a thought and managed to list down a few things I’d like to achieve this year! With more commitments this year onward and for me to live a more meaningful life, I decided to give resolutions another go. Call them goals if you will, I’ll try my best to stay true to them and see how far I go at the end of 2017!
Happy happy new year CL! 😀 I do think resolutions are so over rated, but in some ways, we all need our little goals in life. That’s a far better thing to keep to eh? Glad you’ve picked out some goals you’d like to achieve. It’s always a good thing to better ourselves, in every little way possible! Good luck sticking with them and happy 2017!
i also don’t make resolutions, because I am horrible at keeping them. But having small little goals like sleep a little earlier than before, or drink more water, cut down to 1 small portion of sweet stuff a day… things that what some people may call it “baby steps”, are actually so much more doable for me. And the best part I get to reward myself silly for accomplishing small little things like this… 😛
may 2017 be a better year for everyone! onwards!!
Hahaha self-reward for achieving little goals are the best thing about achieving those goals! Well done Plue – with baby steps, we’ll all get to our ultimate goal in the end 🙂 Here’s to a better 2017 for us all!
I don’t do resolutions. I’m most likely to ditch it by the end of January. Instead, I set goals for myself. It gets better each year. I’m happy and the people around me are happy as well.
I think goals are more achievable, or at least we try to achieve them more than an abstract resolution. Anything that leaves us better than when we started is a good thing!