The “Resolutionaries” Are Back

Go home. Seriously. I mean – OK, that’s not a nice thing to say but it doesn’t make it less true. I have 100% full respect for the folks out there who make new years resolutions to slim down and shape up. I do.

But why do you all have to do it at once?

You are clogging my gym and taking my machine and you don’t have one ounce of gym ettiquette and it’s not that you shouldn’t be there but can you perhaps make your big resolution in, like, March? Or perhaps resolutions can be done by last name: A-K in January, L-P in June, Q-Z in September.

Here’s my theory, and please take this with all the compassion in the world: If you make a “resolution” you are bound to fail.

It’s time sensitive. “I will start going to the gym in January!” But let’s say the kids karate is running late more often than not or you get the flu or your shoes are worn out and you asked for the new coach purse instead of running shoes, so what’s the point?  You go the first week but you can’t make it the next. Or you go the first two weeks but February is a dud. So you give up and you say, “Maybe next year!”

But I am solution oriented, of course. So here’s my plan: Make your “resolution” in March. Or April. Or halfway through October. What does this accomplish? Well, A… it gets the influx of non-gym-using newbies out of the gym. B if gives you a chance at success! You aren’t making a true resolution in March. You’re making a decision to change. A life decision. The decision to start anew without the baggage of your old life, but more importantly without the pressure of the new year.

I am a firm believer in making a change. I did it myself. One day I woke up and said, “OK – doc says I need to lose weight and today is the day.” It was March. It was perfect.  I didn’t say “tomorrow” or “in the new year.” I said, my life was my life yesterday and it will be tomorrow and I don’t need some big event to get my life in gear.

If I sound bitter it’s not because I want you to fail. Rather, it’s because I want you to succeed and I know you aren’t going to do it this way. And in the meantime you’re taking up all the fucking ellipticals and stacking the weights like a jerk.

OK. Maybe that is a little bitter.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!