Every year around Christmas time all of us start thinking about the upcoming year and along with that our New Years resolutions. What will I commit to this year to improve the quality of my life or be happier? Lose weight, quit smoking, exercise more, take a trip, reconnect with a loved one. The New Year brings a fresh start, a clean slate, and anything is possible. Limitless opportunity. A chance to start over. And with that, a lot of will power to change something in your life.

I personally find that the first two weeks of the New Year are great! I’m on a new diet, I’m exercising more, not smoking, and all that jazz. Then, around Presidents Day, something happens. I start losing motivation, get lazy, give myself a free pass to slip once in awhile. Suddenly, all that momentum that came with the start of a new year is lost. And I find myself slipping back to old habits and old ways of being.

It takes a lot of effort to stick with something and keep the willpower going to get to your goal. Our busy daily lives take over, we get wrapped up in all our to-do’s and get excited about checking them off our list, one by one. We get trapped in the small stuff, and in doing so, lose sight of the finish line. We end up giving up, without really ever trying. In doing so, we let down ourselves and we set the pattern of disappointing our selves and breaking our promises to ourselves.

This may not seem like a big deal in the bigger scope of things. We tend to be easier on ourselves sometimes. It’s not a big deal, its only ourselves we’re letting down, not someone else. It’s okay to slip if the only person we’re hurting is ourselves. But guess what happens? In doing so, we begin not to trust ourselves. We set a precedent for reliability - “can I count on you, self, for this?” When you look at your shoddy track record, you’re not so quick to trust that you’ll do what you said you’d do. And that’s when you realize, you’re not all that reliable as you thought you were. You start losing faith in yourself and your abilities. You become doubtful and start second-guessing yourself more and more.

Realizing this about yourself is an important key to understanding why we dont keep those New Years resolutions. Why those endless diets don’t work. Why we cant quit smoking. Etc etc etc. It’s because deep down inside, we dont trust ourselves to actually do it. Its one thing to talk your talk, its a whole other thing to actually walk your talk.

Starting small and slowly building the trust back is a good first step. As with any relationship, trust comes with time. Once you break the trust, it can be a slow and sometimes painful process to regain it. Be gentle with yourself. Be forgiving. But start building the trust back up, one small step at a time. Create new habits that are easily attainable. Keep promises to yourself. And remember to do it with compassion and love. The last person you want to piss off is yourself.