Since I’m not religious or Christian, I don’t celebrate Easter (Happy Easter to you if you do!) but I find this time of year a good time for renewal. The past few weeks I’ve been battling lethargy, emotional bursts and just plain ol’ feeling crap. Some probably due to my lack of any proper exercise and the rest from outside… drama.

So with renewal in mind, I’m re-affirming my goals for the next few months.

Exercise – I’m going to do Insanity again. I’m hoping to do it in the mornings, but I’m not a morning person so I won’t beat myself up if that doesn’t happen. But I’d like to do Insanity in the mornings and then 2-3 times a week do something in the evenings different. Pure weight training or maybe C25K. I’ll have to see how it goes and how I feel. I won’t overdo it.

Food – Tomorrow we start the South Beach Diet (again). This will be my fourth time? doing it, and with the exercise I’m sure to see some results. Basically I’ve been eating a lot of ‘comfort’ foods the past few weeks and it’s making me feel ill. SBD acts as a detox and I always eat cleaner on it, which is one of my goals for the year.

Personal – I am going to try to focus on not allowing what other people say affect my well being. Harder said than done, I know – especially when my confidence and emotions are all very much affected by what people, especially those I think are close to me, say. For some reason I keep letting the same people hurt me over and over and I need to learn to be strong enough to stop that from happening. I’m just not sure how to do it, yet.

Work – There are a lot of upcoming opportunities at work for me, and I am going to need to summon the confidence and courage to take the steps I need to so that I can head in the direction I want. It’s challenging and scary and exciting and hopefully, will be a good change for me.

So… A lot of changes coming for me. It seems daunting when I lay it all out there like that, but I’m not going to push myself to do it all at once. I know it won’t happen overnight, I just need to take it one day at time and do the best I can with each day and take the steps to keep me happy and healthy. And stop worrying about what everyone else is doing or thinks of what I’m doing.

I got where I am today, with the person I love the most and in a country I didn’t grow up in, by listening to my instinct and my heart and not caring about what anyone thought of my decisions. I need to remind myself that I know myself better than anyone and stop making excuses to do what everyone else does and do what’s best for me.

I think this year is a huge leap for me, a leap to a place where I love myself. My husband keeps telling me I need to do that, and I know I don’t. So one day at a time, I’m going to learn how to by becoming someone I am proud of.

Everyone needs to love more, not just themselves but everyone else.