I purposefully didn’t write this blog at New Year. It seemed to have too puritanical a sentiment – rather like a teetotaller at a

New Year Eve’s party.

Now it is 14 January and many resolutions have already lost their lustre, fading with the alcoholic haze of their New Year’s Eve’s

making. Leaving only the tart taste of self-judgment. Why have I already started eating chocolate again? Why have I only lost

three pounds?  Why haven’t I got a new job? Gone to gym, starting training for a marathon? And so on…

The problem is really in the actual idea of New Year resolutions. What most of us mean is an extensive To Do list that normally

involves a large dose of improbability and fantasy. Ultimately, more ambitious goals. You are tall and broad-framed, yet you set

yourself an unrealistic and, frankly, unkind weight loss. You are determined to get promoted, by February. Rather than

resolving to live our lives more fully, be more present for ourselves and others, listen more, talk less, respond more, react less,

we come up with a list of ambitions, desires, wants, driven by the insecure feeling that we are not enough, particularly potent in

the aftermath of the holidays.  

Post New Year, we simply switch cocktails and canapes for the latest outrageously promising extreme diet, blissfully unaware

that both are equally excessive and unhealthy. Both ends of the spectrum are distractions, often simply from ourselves.

We are bored with this time of year: bored with the empty diary date and bored with ourselves. Boredom is often rooted in lack

of attention: to ourselves and others. We set goals to get away from ourselves, our present lives, our reality.

So here is an alternative.

My To Be Present list for 2019:

Self care

Self compassion

Appreciate joy

Do less

Rest more

Generosity is the biggest fix

Create balance

Don’t separate work and life – it is all, every moment of it, life