January is a long, cold, poor ass month. We arrive into it hungover and usually skint from Christmas, and worst still, it is this month we choose to say to ourselves we will do all those things, start all those things, stop all those things we struggled to do or not do for the past 11 months. It is ridiculous.
Why, oh why, would we go into the longest, darkest, crappest of months with all these restrictions, and rules? Why would we set ourselves challenges and goals in a month that's so MISERABLE?
Surely if you want to succeed at anything in life, you need to find enjoyment in it? And getting to the gym at 8am when its dark and cold, or giving up your glass of red on the sofa when you can't afford to do squat else isn't fun.
So, it is with this that I am writing off January. Yep. That word means nothing to me. (Aside the 31st of January when I am bridesmaid to one of my best friends.... *waves at Charlotte!) I will not try to declutter all the crap I accumulated in 2014. I will not beat myself up for missing the gym or for eating not one, but two Greggs sausage rolls or for meeting my boyfriend for my third Nandos of the month. I will not feel guilty when I finish the entire bottle of red (to myself) and then take to Twitter.... (ok, the drunk tweeting I could calm down a bit on.)
What I will try to do is not give myself such a hard time like I did in 2014. Last year I was constantly not good enough. Not good enough at my job, my friends, my family, my looks. This year somethings gotta give and it really should be the self beating I keep knocking myself out with.
I spent most of December finding myself (ya ya ya) in India. And like most backpackers, between jobs (unemployed), trying meditation for the first time and on their third Kingfisher Beer watching the sunset, my boyfriend and I set ourselves a shed loads of goals for 2015. We would save thousands, get the dream home, lose weight, stop bad habits, see more of so and so and less of so and so. The list was endless. I had every intention of getting on this new and improved track I had devised. Then I got back to Heathrow after a five hour delay and spent the next week with jet lag, meaning I was wide awake at 5am and asleep on the sofa at 9pm. Its now mid month and it just occurred to me that we've got it all wrong.
Shit can't get done when its so CRAP outside. I can't be passionate and empowered when I am poor, miserable and exhausted.
So, that's why I've written it off. I will be drinking red wine and watching Drunk History on a Monday (its in the title FFS...), I will pop to the gym when I feel like it and not because I really should. I will eat the entire jar of Nutella and blame it on the cat whenever I feel like. Because its not even the New Year yet.... Because my new year starts on February 1st....