And now you get to look forward to what could be. So obviously I’m very inspired. Obviously I’m one of those. That’s just like, let’s grab it and run and enjoy it. While the last year we’ve experienced all of these challenges. And I talked about that last week in the 21 things we learned in 21, as the years switch over. I don’t see all of that heavy weighted stuff. I just see the silver linings and the excitement. It’s kind of like when I gave birth to my kids, you know, in the middle of the process, you’re like who the hell thought that this was a good idea to bring life into the world and why can’t somebody else endure this pain for me? And what the hell was I thinking? And I’m never going to do this again. And then you’re holding that life, that child in your arms.

And you’re in awe and blown away, and you do it again. Or it’s that festival that you help put on. And that huge project that is months and months in the making and has so many frustrating, challenging moments that make you want to scream and yell. And then the time comes and you put it on and it’s so amazing. Everybody has such a beautiful time and they look at you and they say, Hey, you want to do it again? And you sign up to help next year. Even though the whole time you were just like, what was I thinking? Or what if it’s like cooking your holiday meal, you sign up to host everybody at your house and you slave all day. It might take a couple of days if you’re cooking the pies and the rolls and whatever the day before you cook all day long, and then you have this 20 minutes of sitting down and eating, and then you have this pile of dishes that you have to go through before you can sit down and relax.

And while you’re doing the dishes, you’re thinking, why did I sign up for that? And yet it comes around again and you totally volunteer for it because you love having everybody around in your home. I’m sure that you can come up with another one or two of your own where you do something in the middle of it. You’re thinking, what was I thinking? And at the end of it, you think, yeah, I think I could do that again. This is very similar to setting new year’s resolutions and intentions. Every year it comes around and every year we set new intentions, a new New Year’s resolution, and we go pie in the sky. We think I am just going to go for this. And I’m going to, I’m going to lose that weight, or I’m going to start working out, or I’m going to do whatever is it that you’re going to do?

And you think huge, you know, I’m going to start this business, or I’m going to learn how to play the guitar or I’m going to do this or that, or the other. You have these huge ideas. And at the end of the year, you look back and you think, oh, well, I had all those resolutions and I failed. So oftentimes this tradition becomes a cause of upset. You’d set these goals. They’re a bit more exuberant than you could realistically achieve. And you believe that you could push yourself to succeed and look at all these amazing things. That’ll be so cool when I’ve actually done it. And then when you start to fall short of your goal, you get down on yourself and you start berating yourself. The negative self-talk comes in and then you end up consoling yourself. Like it’s okay. I don’t suck as bad as I thought.

I went too big to change that this year, as you’re going into 2022, I have a delightfully simple solution for you. I want you to make every goal way smaller than you think you can realistically achieve. Seriously. I want you to start super easy. And then when you blow past that first goalpost, then you feel great and you get this confidence boost and you say, yeah, dude, I’m awesome. Your self-worth improves. And you get to stretch that goal just a little bit more. I achieved that. So now I’m going to try this. So here’s a couple of examples. Most of us have some sort of tracker on our phones and they log the distance that we’ve walked. It’s been tracking you since you got the device. So why not use it to your advantage? How many steps did you take on average last month or last week or last year?

Your goal may be to take a few more steps per day than you did last year. On average, your phone knows what you did or your device knows what you did. So maybe that’s just an extra trip to the water cooler because you want to drink a little more water. Instead of just one, maybe it’s an extra walk to the break room. Maybe it’s that you walk the stairs instead of taking the elevator. It’s really easy to throw in a few more steps per day, just by a little change, a tiny little shift, and then you’ve achieved. And you can go a little further. If you want to do a fitness goal and you want to expand that maybe you decide you’re going to do one pushup per day and you get out of bed and you do one pushup, and then you get up.

You go to the bathroom, you take shower, you start your day and a weekend. You’re like, okay, one push-up. I can so do that. And you start doing two, or you start doing three a month. You might be doing 10 pushups per day because it just feels good. You just blew past your first goal of doing one a day because you succeeded. You made something that was small enough to achieve, and yet big enough for you to feel results. Maybe it’s a plank and you want to do a plank for a second. So you decide I’m going to do it for 10 seconds a day. And then 10 seconds a day is super easy. So you do it for 20, and then you do it for 30.

A friend on her lunch break decided she would join this gym. And they were doing outside classes. And one day they were outside, they were doing kind of like a boot camp training. So they were doing pushups and jumping jacks and all this stuff. And these teenage kids were walking past them. And this one teenage girl was kind of mocking her and making fun of this friend for her activity in the outdoor course and kind of joking about her age. So my friend invited the teenager to come on over. And right then the leader said, get into planking. So my friend in her mid-to-late forties goes down into plank. The teenager goes down into plank. The teenager fell out of plank within 10 seconds and she just blew it off and said this isn’t for me and left. And a minute and a half later, my friend was still in planking and kicking it. She started small and then she achieved that and she went bigger.

Go for it. Maybe your goal is two minutes of personal time, two minutes. Can you find that? Is it a walk around the block? Maybe you want to start meditating. However, that looks for you. You know how I feel about this. It is not sitting in the Lotus position necessarily. It is whatever works for you. Maybe meditating is going to be sanding. Maybe meditating is going to be just walking. Maybe it’s going to be chopping vegetables. Maybe you decide that it’s laying on the grass and staring at the clouds and trying to figure out what the clouds look like. Is it a bunny rabbit? Is it an airplane? Is there a bear up there? Just looking down, start small and even better than that, what can you do here? And now no extra equipment is needed. We’re not talking about having to buy things, no obstacles in your way, remove that aspect.

You know, if you’re doing a plank, you don’t need any exercise, equipment, meditation, you don’t need anything extra. So remove all those obstacles. It’s just you and the tiniest shift into choosing you and what you want to do. Now. Some of us may decide that we need a little bit of a boost. It may be. You’ve decided that you want to walk a little bit more and you’re going to need a pair of walking shoes. And that is what gets you motivated. Or maybe you decide that you actually do want to go to the gym and a new workout outfit is the perfect thing to motivate you and get you excited to go. Maybe you do want to learn how to play the guitar and something small and simple is going to help you along that way. Go small. What little step can you take now that will help you walk towards the bigger goal at the end, break it down, make it easier, be in the moment and achieve in a way that makes you feel good and makes you want to achieve even more?

As you finish this year. And you’re looking at the next year, you made your list of all the things that you learned and all the growth that you’ve experienced in this last year. And now you get to turn and you get to look at this new year and you get to say, what do I want? Where do I want to be? Where do I want to go? And then you’re going to break that down into the smallest, easiest, simplest steps that you can possibly do so that you get to achieve and encourage yourself instead of shit. I missed the mark again. I know you can do it. And I, so look forward to seeing and hearing and knowing what you’ve decided to do and the tiny steps that you’ve decided to make so that you can achieve the big things later. Take care of yourself, have a fabulous new year, and we’ll see you again later on Breathe In, Breathe Out.

I hope this moment of self-care and healing brought you some hope and peace. I’m @krystaljakosky on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube and I hope you check us out and follow along for more content coming soon. I look forward to being with you again, here on Breathe In, Breathe Out. Until next time, take care.