If the marketing for Christmas wasn’t bad enough with companies telling us we need to buy something expensive  to prove our love to someone now it is New Years resolution time! Short courses, long courses, diets, online courses, exercise must haves, diary planners, ‘how to’ books, de cluttering books, books that will change your life books. ‘New Year New You’  bla bla bla because we are told we aren’t good enough the way we are without having x,y & z or nothing without buying a, b & c. It is exhausting! I’ll get off my soap box!!

But what happens when you can’t just do something when you want to because of illness, injury, or your circumstances have changed?

New Year’s Resolutions just feel like I am setting myself up for failure, I was never even  particularly good at them to begin with!

I can’t put a time line on most things because I don’t know if I will physically be able to do something due to my injury. I do have to prioritise some things that help care for myself & my family, that can take all day.

Speaking from experience it can be down right depressing, seeing things that  could have been such an easy task before my accident to then being  impossible to accomplish even on a good day.

Focusing on what I can do and not what I can’t do plus doing a little and often, slow and steady seems to be the winning formula for me.

I’ve set up systems for myself, nothing complicated, just different things I can do depending on my skill level on any particular day.

I have craft project lists, project baskets, project bags, a list of interests to research, movies to watch, recipes to make, books to read, new magazines & podcasts I want to explore. eg.  I research ways for our home & family to be more environmentally friendly,  I look for ways to implement easier systems for tasks I find difficult, look for Vegetarian Indian Recipes to eat all year around instead of buying Indian Take Away three times a year during daylight savings!

I have projects I can go to depending on the level of skill my hand is up for,  how much pain I am in and what else needs to be achieved that day. Sometimes those projects don’t get touched for months on end but I know they are there when I am able to go back to them.

I also know that navigating my way through a day is easier when I:

Get enough sleep or allow myself to rest when I need to.

Eat well and exclude sugar from my diet (this really helps), eat less bread & gluten (just realising this)  and have meals organised for the day.

Drink enough water or herbal tea.

Control how much news & currents affairs I listen to.

Limit commercial television, I don’t need to see ad’s for television shows that scare the cr*p out of me, they are just too violent.

Stop myself if I start going down the comparing road, comparing myself to others, but let’s be honest sometimes it can take all day or weeks until I realise what I am doing, I set unrealistic goals for myself thinking that I am still  able bodied  and without the responsibility of full time homeschooling a teenager with an injury caused from Dr’s negligence. I remind myself  over and over that I am running my own race.  I’m not jealous of people who are having success, far from it, I am truely happy for them.

Go outside and sit quietly even for 10 minutes before the home schooling day, work and house hold chores start.

So I say stuff the New Year Resolutions, I’ll just continue on with my little systems that I will keep redefining that help me show up and be the best I can be on any given day because isn’t that what life is about, doing the best we can with what we have.

Jude x