Was it a New Year just last week?

Here I am just one short sleep away from my second Monday back to work from the New Year. Why is it after just 10 days, all the "oohhh shiny" from those goals and aspirations seems to have faded to a dull bronze like the light fixtures that came with your first house?  Seriously, did we all just get shorted a chip in our head that keeps us from sticking to stuff?

Change is hard. Ridiculously hard. Even change we want to happen. Don't you find that a little bit crazy? One of my goals; I wanted to wash my face every night before I went to bed. Think about that. My goal was basic personal hygiene and I'm still only at about 80% in 10 days! 

Last week was healthy eating week at our house.  I put this challenge out to my running crew at Christmas.  This is a group of gals hovering in their 40's that run every week and ponder the craziness of this wife/mom thing we signed up for.  I challenged them to a healthy eating week of vegetables, fruit, chicken, fish and whole wheat; No processed foods, no red meat, no sugar. 

I must say, I was pretty excited that even the husbands got on board. Having gorged on chocolate chip cookies and cheese balls for a month, all of us were looking for the exit out of heart attack hell of the holidays.  We did really well at our house. Thankfully, I love to cook and was home all week in my office without a lot of client travel so it was pretty easy.  Why then on Friday night, just hours before the challenge was to end, like Homer Simpson and doughnuts, I started having hallucinations about pizza?

Think about this for a minute, I didn't set a goal to get my doctorate degree or climb Mt. Higher than Hell.  I wanted to eat real food and wash my face and I couldn't do that 100% for 10 days.  Makes me wonder how I've held a job for so long!

I hope we all know that life isn't about perfection.  It's about doing the best we can in the moment. Did I eat better last week than I have in a long time. Absolutely!  Did I finally get around to scraping the day dirt from my face and using that high dollar anti aging cream that sits in my drawer a few more days last week. Absolutely!

Big key to sticking to stuff, tell people what you're trying to accomplish. If you're really serious about doing something, your goals can't be a secret. You'll be about as loyal to yourself as the lead singer was to you in that band you followed in the 80's.

I took and sent 8500 texts from my running buds last week about healthy eating boundaries. Things like, "If I just lick the brownie, is that ok?"   We're not easy on each other either. Find friends that aren't the "poor baby" friends,those are a dime a dozen. Find the ones that call BS when they see it. Not just about eating and face cream. Everyone can bitch and moan about their husband, their kids, their boss, their landlord, their gas mileage.  Find some friends that will help you see it differently and then do it differently. those are priceless. 

I stumbled on a blog from a crazy chic I follow on Twitter. One of her goals was face washing too. I sent her a tweet (message) asking if she was looking over my shoulder in the goal setting department because I had the same goal. We sent some funny exchanges for a few days. Truth be told, I can't wash my face without thinking of her and wondering if she'll tweet me the next day to see if I've done the scrubba dub. Think about that. I've never met this person. Yet I'm thinking about @manicalmom from Twitter while standing at my vanity at night.  The business term for this is accountability. In straight talk it means, don't be an idiot and flake on what you said you were going to do.  The only way to do this is to tell someone that will either pick you up when you're laying in a pile of potato chips slobbering like a Newfoundland or slap you silly when you go into your whine fest. Those are the friends to find and stick with, forever.And if you are really heading to a "wine" fest, I'm the right friend for that too.  Happy New Year to you and yours.