healthmedicinet

I don’t do resolutions but apparently a lot of people do because the gym was packed this morning.

If something needs to change, I change it. Relying on a number on a calender has never worked for me. Trust me. I’ve tried it. You can ask any alcoholic and they have set deadlines and then they either broken them or get sober for a few weeks and then they’re back at it.

It’s the same with dieting. If you can go ON a diet, you can go OFF a diet. You want to lose weight or quit smoking or drinking, you just do it – not because it’s a certain day of the year. Because it needs to be done and every cell in your body is convinced of that truth. In the words of the philosophers at Nike: Just do it.

Of course if you are as hard headed as I am, it may take some time to convince yourself that you really need to make a change. In fact, I brain has concocted truly ridiculous arguments  to prove to myself that I didn’t need to quit drinking, take antidepressants or see a therapist.

For example, take my drinking: instead of quitting, I tried to control it. I told myself I would not drink on school nights – which to a normal person would mean no drinking on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. However, to my alcoholic way of thinking, Sunday was still the weekend and Thursday was the warm-up for the weekend.

By the time I was done rationalizing my behavior, I was back to drinking Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Didn’t take long before I was drinking everyday.

Same with my depression. I convinced myself that I didn’t need antidepressants or therapy. I just needed to get my sh*t together and pull myself up by my bootstraps. Go to the gym more and workout harder. Get more sleep. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop being such a wuss.

I had to go to a really dark place with my drinking and depression before I accepted that I needed to make some changes. Every cell in my body admitted defeat before I got sober, started taking antidepressants and seeing a therapist. It was the gift of desperation.

Which brings me back to resolutions. Instead of resolutions, I prefer mantras. For example, when I am skiing faster than I should or mountain-biking down an incline I have no business being on, I use a mantra a coach once taught me: “Your body knows what to do…Your body knows what to do…Your body knows what to do.” My muscles relax, my coordination and balance return and I let my body take control.

For 2014 I have decided to steal Diana Nyad’s mantra: “Find a way. Find a way. Find a way.” Nyad is the only human being who swam from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. Many other women and men have tried. Nyad is the only one who succeeded. And she was 64-years-old when she did it. She found a way.

I prefer “Find a way” to “don’t give up” because to “Find a way,” you must take action. When you are depressed, people often say “don’t give up.” Well, if you “don’t give up,” then what? What the hell are you supposed to do if you “don’t give up?”

“Find a way.”

“Find a way” implies that I have power. I am capable. I am in control. I am going beyond merely not “giving up.”  I am going to “find a way.”

Resolution road-sign image available from Shutterstock.

 

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And they are apparently too stupid to realize how easy it is to ensure they are called out for their bad behavior.

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    Last reviewed: 3 Jan 2014