Five Small Resolutions That I Might Keep

Anniki Sommerville - 2 Jan 18

It’s hard not fall for it. Each year, January comes around, and we’re bombarded with articles about how we can become better people. Exercise more, eat more healthily, spend less time sitting on the sofa watching the box. The thing is it’s hard to change – bad habits are often deeply ingrained, and by the time February has come round most of us have abandoned our ideals and are back to our bad ways. So this year I’ve decided on some slightly more low-key resolutions, things that feel realistic, things that I might actually manage to keep as 2018 unfolds.

Here goes…

1. I will have a hot bath on a regular basis 

This sounds like a relatively small thing to want to do, but hot baths are one of those things that I forget how good they actually are until I’m fully immersed, and can feel all the muscles in my back unknot. I often emerge from a hot bath feeling like a completely new woman, (and I mean properly HOT so your skin goes pink and you feel dizzy as you clamber out, none of this lukewarm puddle with a bit of ‘Frozen’ bubble bath floating on top thanks).

2. I will stop dwelling on the past 

I spent a lot of time in 2017 thinking about how things might have been different if I’d had a child earlier, tried a different career earlier, bought a bigger house when the market was good, or tried living in another country perhaps. The cruel truth is that there is NOWT I can do about all that. So there’s no point wasting time and brain space thinking about it. This isn’t actually a small thing for me, it’s a biggie.

3. Each day I will think of ONE thing that’s gone well

As women I think we tend to beat ourselves up about the stuff we haven’t done, the stuff that’s gone wrong, the faux pas we made, the parenting fail…all these moments are replayed again and again. So instead, I’m going to try and conjure up ONE thing that has gone well. This might be the fact that I’ve managed to clean the toilet after putting it off for two days or that I finally had that hot bath. Thinking of the good stuff at the end of the day is often hard to do if you’re going through a bad patch (and you can end up clutching at straws) but hopefully there will always be something (even if it’s just the fact that you cleaned out the cat litter and didn’t retch at the same time for once).

4. I will stop being a horrible bitch 

I have always had a side of my personality which is horrible (hell there’s quite a bit that is), but there are times when I’m tired and those tend to be the times when I’m horrible about other people. This used to happen a lot in my old corporate job because I was very unhappy but even now it happens. So last week, I saw a woman in a yoga class, and decided that I didn’t like her, and then said horrible things about her- things like ‘Look at her showing off, she can’t even get her leg in the air but she’s trying to impress the teacher,’ and ‘God I would hate to have hair like that…it’s like Sheena Easton’s in an eighties pop video,’   (I simply repeated these mean things whilst doing the class).

It was only afterwards that I felt truly soiled. Who the heck goes to a yoga class and does this? Horrible person. Horrible I am.

5. I will try one thing each day that is completely out of character 

The older you get, the harder it is to get out of the routine and drudge and try new things. So I’ve decided that each day I will do one thing that isn’t TYPICALLY the kind of thing I’d do. This might be going to bed very late- like 11 pm for example, or not watching TV like a sloth every evening (not sure what I’d actually do instead though) or it might be putting on some loud hip-hop, and shouting I’M FUCKING GREAT! over and over (I’m usually very self-deprecating so this would definitely be out of character). I want to see if this prevents me from becoming too rigid and DOGMATIC in my old age (I love Janet Street-Porter, but am seriously starting to adopt many of her characteristics and I’m not sure it suits me).

So there you go. I want to change but only a bit. The diet and the healthy living thing possibly isn’t going to happen as it never really does.

I’m also FUCKING GREAT most of the time, aren’t you?

Anniki Sommerville

I'm Super Editor here at SelfishMother.com and love reading all your fantastic posts and mulling over all the complexities of modern parenting. We have a fantastic and supportive community of writers here and I've learnt just how transformative and therapeutic writing can me. If you've had a bad day then write about it. If you've had a good day- do the same! You'll feel better just airing your thoughts and realising that no one has a master plan. I'm Mum to a daughter who's 3 and my passions are writing, reading and doing yoga (I love saying that but to be honest I'm no yogi).

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