10 days into the New Year, how are those resolutions going? Personally, I love a good New Year-New Me moment. I recognize the ludicrous nature of it, but as someone who grew up at the heyday of chick flicks and teen rom-coms, it’s ingrained in my psyche. It’s a cliche for a reason: sure, we make fun of it, but who doesn’t want that makeover montage? But really, 2018 was a solid year for me — it was pretty $hit in a lot of political, larger scale ways, but from a purely personal level, it was actually a pretty steady year. Nothing too wild happened, it was more a year that felt like it was in preparation for the one to come. A lot of that is because Shred Girls: Lindsay’s Joyride has a release date of May 7 (but you can pre-order now!) and that means most of the year has been gearing up for that, and working on the next books in the series and a couple of other book projects. Things are moving along but nothing HUGE has happened, you know?
So what do you do when the makeover to-do list feels a little stale or stagnant, like you’re just not making any major moves?
New Years — in fact, this whole month — feels like this great chance to reflect, to make changes, to start over. I pity the editors who are getting swarmed with pitches and ideas from people like me (sorry!). And it’s laughable, because I do this three times a year, at least, and every time I start doing a ‘taking charge of my life’ moment lately, I kind of burst my own bubble because I realize that things are chugging along in a pretty solid direction. Do I wish my knee wasn’t out of whack and my running was going better, or that my skin was a little clearer (come on, 31 shouldn’t mean wrinkles AND pimples!), or that I was getting more huge publishing contracts or that Shred Girls was somehow already hitting bestseller lists? Heck yeah. But overall, there aren’t many huge changes to make, and makeover montages just don’t happen in real life.
To this end, I have two confessions:
1) After having that deep conversation with my friend, I came home, messed around on the computer for a few minutes, and then went to Target. Because how else do you start a resolution if not by going there to get new skincare products and calendars? (I did, to be fair, make a joke about it. And did not end up buying anything other than food for that day. It did illuminate the problem with New Years resolutions though — the idea that buying a few things can change your life.)
2) Even as I write this, I’m doing a bit of a meta-thing where I’m picturing a writing montage, me getting the three books I’m working on finished while sipping a cup of coffee and pounding away at the keyboard for hours on end, which is so far removed from my actual life — at a training camp, surrounded by bike gear, with a mountain of other work to be done — that it’s laughable, but it still comes to mind.
But back to present moment (writing this in a hotel lobby between interviews with bike racers), I realize I benefit from the meta-makeover-montage thought process. It’s what gets me up and gets me typing away on my computer, gets me thinking of long term plans and book launches and podcast stuff and clinics we want to run. So I’ll keep having my mini-makeover moments when I can.
It’s fine.
So, like the title suggests, new year, new-ish me. Still enjoying my internal makeover montage, still gearing up for the Shred Girls launch, but with a bit more renewed motivation to really head into the year feeling like I can make the few projects I’m focusing on in 2019 really take off.
