2013 Will Be The Year Of …

I’ve started collecting stories about perspiration.  What makes you sweat?  There’s the one about the lady who boarded the bus each morning, dripping of sweat after walking up a long hill.  Passengers visibly cringed as if to say “Please don’t sit next to me!”

What does this have to do with new year resolutions?

For the last three years, I’ve been organising my resolutions as a personal Year Of.  Last year, I enjoyed a very successful Year Of Efficient Eating, where I worked out the minimum daily requirement of particular foods and adjusted my habits accordingly.  While the year produced lots of benefits, I’m afraid weight loss wasn’t one of them.  But, interestingly, neither was weight gain.  This was particularly significant because I hadn’t exercised much.

One of the rules for a personal Year Of is to build on the previous year in order to maintain momentum.  Now that I’m eating right and consequently have more energy, why not tackle movement.

So, I’ve decided that 2013 will be (insert fanfare) the Year Of Sweat.

Notice that I have not specifically included anything about weight loss in the title.  Another of the rules is to create as much space as possible around the idea so that it can be explored; give the unexpected and unplanned opportunity to participate.

The Explorer’s Mindset

At the end of 2012, I expanded my blog around the idea of exploring.  We can look at our world in whatever mindset we choose.  I’m exploring whether looking at the world with an explorer’s mindset might make change less brutal.  This, of course, is very significant for resolutions which are fundamentally about change.

Exercise and I are not strangers.  And this is where the explorer’s mindset becomes important.  An explorer is not just someone who heads off into new territory to bring back information that will change the world.  An explorer is also someone who brings a fresh set of eyes to a well-travelled path.  Imagine a geologist heading off into an already mapped world, carrying new technology that allows her to find previously unseen mineral wealth.

The explorer in me will approach the idea of sweat from a different perspective during 2013.  Instead of the obvious way to start, that being immediately throwing myself into exercise, I’m going to create a set of Sweat Cards from which I can randomly choose an activity designed to get the perspiration flowing.

There will, of course, still be the usual strategies of finding well-researched information, taking it all one step at a time, reflecting regularly on progress and direction, keeping a record (ie blog), blah, blah, blah.

So, who sweated the most – the lady who walked up the hill or the passengers who cringed in dread of an unwanted outcome?