Whether or not you made a New Year’s Resolution for 2016, this is something you’re going to want to read.  January is notorious for lots of hyped up motivation to make BIG goals to reach BIG dreams in your health and otherwise.  I mean, really, the New Year is a brand spankin’ new start!  The morning of January 1st is just brimming with possibilities, opportunities to explore, a healthy new perspective and HOPE that you can be a little better than last year.  All of these thoughts and feelings are good.  Great, even.  They can help you to take that first step, to decide to try something new, to make positive changes in your life.  All good stuff! 

But, what happens when you wake up late one morning and miss your planned workout, and one things leads to another throughout the day and before you know it, it’s midnight and you’ve missed that workout entirely!  Or... when your sweet daughter, in a rush, snags your carefully prepared nutritious, super food lunch and packs it off to school leaving you hangry, standing in front of a vending machine during your lunch hour wondering what happened to your life.  (Not like that’s ever happened to me.  My life’s perfect.  smh)   But here you are. you’ve just gone and done it.  You've done what's always feared when faced with a perfectly clean slate; you’ve made a mistake (gasp!) and now that nice and shiny New Year has a mark.  Whether intentional or not, it’s already done so now what?  This is the moment.  This is the moment that YOU decide if you will see that mistake as a flat tire and start slashing the other three out of frustration or if you will look that tire over, see what went wrong, find the hole and start making the necessary patch to get back on your way to where you want to go.

Mistakes happen to all of us.  We’re human.  We’re not perfect, nor will we ever be in this life.  Mistakes and poor choices happen all. the. time. in one form or another.  I like what the author, Neil Gaiman, said when he talked about how he hopes “you are making mistakes...because if you’re making mistakes, then you are...trying new things, learning, living...you’re doing something”. 

This year, whether it’s set as a resolution or not, let’s work toward forgiving ourselves for mistakes made, recognize that making them means you are at least doing something even if it’s not perfect, that at least you were living, and then take this opportunity to evaluate the mistake and seek ways to avoid it in the future.  Let’s learn from our mistakes, move on and live!

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