how to break your new year's resolutions in five easy steps

Happy New Year to all you gorgeous people. Yes, I'm talking to you.

You may notice there's a few subtle changes going on over in this part of the world, including a new header depicting the idea of Forever Summer. Of course, Melbourne is yet to receive that memo, but I still live in the hope of a summer sometime soon. (Melbourne, are you listening?)

Anyway, it's been a lazy day here at a day in the life of us. We're recovering from our big Work Do up north at Lake Macquarie which basically started for us way before Christmas, and my burnt out candle wick is recovering slowly with each nanna nap. And even though the beginning of the year is a fresh way to start anew, I feel like I've already broken what few resolutions I made.

For example, I was going to go to bed earlier in 2011. Ten pm to be exact. And yet here I am, starting a blog post at 11pm. Also, I was also going to eat better, but after not cooking for a week and living on rich foods and take-away, I've been cooking like Nigella on heat. And well, the meals have been pretty good so far (if I don't say so myself). Even though I started with a small serving of mains, I just had to have another serving (small, of course) of the mushroom and spinach risotto. And the salad. And another slice of garlic foccaccia.

Sigh. I am so bad at this.

In fact, I'm doing such a terrible job in the resolution department, I thought it was worth sharing, so you can help learn from my mistakes. In fact, there are just five easy steps to breaking your New Year's Resolutions:

1. Be unrealistic with your resolutions. It's so easy to say, "I'm not going to have any chocolate in 2011" or "I'm going to lose 200 kgs in 2011". First of all, losing that much weight in 365 days is impossible (or just plain dangerous). But seriously? Do you really think you can not eat anything with chocolate in it for that long? It's a high ask. Plus, you really don't know how stressful this year is going to be - yet. And what will you do then? Whatever you do, don't start smoking. That might actually be far worse than just having a block of chocolate. Plus depriving yourself of the odd treat won't help lose that 200 kilos.
2. Make too many resolutions. My memory was wiped clean when I started breastfeeding my first child. I call it Losing My Mammaries. (Yes, I'm serious.) And if you're memory isn't so great, how on earth are you going to remember 50 New Year's Resolutions? Isn't it easier to have say, one or two broad resolutions as opposed to a whole page of teeny tiny ones? You'll have to keep checking your list. Because you're going to forget a few. Or a lot. Or just all of them.
   
3. Call them resolutions. I think that bad karma goes on with those who make resolutions. I've been reading about those who have decided to theme their whole year on one idea. Yeah, I like that. Perhaps we should just ditch the word. I think resolutions just sound like they're made to be broken. Kind of like a half-hearted promise.
4. Make them on January 1st. Why is it that we think that the 1st of January is the best time to make a fresh start? Why not the beginning of the month, or a season, or just on Monday? One year is one very long time to wait to start again. Especially if you stuff up on the 5th. Of January.
5. Make resolutions at all. If you're one of those people who makes them, breaks them and then spends the rest of the year banging your head against the palm of your hand and bemoaning your failure, perhaps you're not cut out for this resolution stuff. Baby steps. Small goals. Because when there's no expectation, there's certainly no disappointment.

Did you make any new year's resolutions? Have you already broken some of them?