Today is a Good Day to Start Over

It’s New Year’s Eve. The last day of 2012. Tomorrow begins a whole new year– the ultimate Monday.

I love Monday. I know that seems weird, but it’s true. Monday is a whole new week, a fresh start, a clean slate. Last week I ate a LOT of Red Vines. Last week I didn’t work out even once. Last week I ate Burger King. Twice.

But today is Monday! Monday is clean sheet day at our house. Everyone strips the sheets off their beds and tosses them in the wash. By bedtime (and sometimes right AT bedtime) everyone has freshly laundered sheets to slide into. I often say there is NOTHING Monday can throw at me than can’t be made better by sliding into clean sheets at the end of the day.

Monday is all about fresh starts. It doesn’t matter that I ate Burger King twice last week because I didn’t have time to pack a lunch. That was last week. I’m going to take time today to come up with a better plan for this week– something I failed to do last week. It doesn’t matter that I over-indulged on Red Vines last week. (And the week before that…) because this is a No Red Vines week. If I can go three months without drinking soda, I can go a week without eating Red Vines. I think. I mean, I can.

I did make a lot of good choices last week. I didn’t have pizza even once, got plenty of sleep, continued with the no-soda resolution, didn’t get popcorn when I went to the movies, and had a grilled chicken salad instead of fried chimichangas when my parents and I went out for Mexican food. These are all evidence of the healthier mind-set I’ve adopted during the past year, and I have every reason to be proud of these choices!

Tomorrow, New Years’s Day, is typically the day folks start their healthy lifestyles. Or Re-start them. The new year is the ultimate Monday– the fresh calendar, the clean slate. It’s a great opportunity to say “Last year was last year– I can do better!” But really, every day is a great day to start over. You don’t have to wait for Monday, or January 1st. Yesterday is yesterday, regardless of where it happened to fall on the calendar. And every minute is also a great time to start over. Maybe you over-indulged at breakfast. That was then! Lunch is a whole new opportunity to start over. Don’t wait until tomorrow! Every opportunity to make a choice about your health is an opportunity to make a good choice. Whatever choices you made yesterday or last year or an hour ago don’t matter because you can’t change the past. You do, however, have complete control over the future choices you make. Look at every new decision as a Monday, an opportunity to start fresh, and you’ll find yourself making choices you won’t regret. Maybe not every time, but eventually the good choices will outnumber the not-so-good choices, and you’ll be on your way to a healthier you!