DEAR TABBY | Salvaging Success from Wreckage of New Year’s Resolutions Gone Wrong
Dear Tabby,
I am a feline failure! I can’t seem to keep a New Year’s resolution even if one of my nine lives depended on it.
Every New Year’s Eve, I sit in my human’s lap, watching the television as we wait for the ball to drop in Times Square. While we wait, I make my New Year’s resolutions. But I seem never to keep them. Some have failed before the last float in the Tournament of Roses parade travels across the TV screen the next day.
Last year, I resolved to shed weight with a daily routine of laser light chasing. By February, I was forgoing fitness in favor of catnaps. Now, here I sit, weighing two more pounds than when 2023 began.
What’s wrong with me, Tabby? Why am I nothing but a fur-covered resolution wrecking ball?
Resolution Wrecker in Richmond
Dear Resolution Wrecker
Don’t be so hard on yourself, my Dear. Watching well-intended wishes wane without fulfillment is as common as the whiskers on your whimpering snout.
Even this feline has felt the failure of faithfully made New Year’s resolutions falling unfulfilled before February unfolds. It is a relentlessly repeating ritual for human and animal kind alike.
So, let’s cease the woeful whining and work out ways to turn winter wishes into wonderful achievements.
Keep the focus of your resolve clear and measurable. For example, if taking control of growing girth is your goal, trade a target of “losing weight” for something more specific like “trim two pounds over two months.”
Define the what, why, and way. Such as what: lose two pounds. Why: to improve health and feel better about yourself. Way: routine exercise and reduced calorie intake. That way, you have a purpose and plan to propel your pursuit.
Break big aspirations into bite-sized steps. Rather than fixating on the summit, take it one paw pad’s pace at a time through manageable portions of progress. Find one thing to do each day to promote progression. Traverse the trajectory with patience, my friend! Your tiny treads will track true toward transforming triumph.
Don’t despair detours along your journey that risk dissolving your determination. Even the fleetest among us trips over temptations. Recognize backslides as cues calling for resets, not reprehension. The finest artworks often reflect an artist revisiting a canvas multiple times. So when you slip up, keep your chin and tail up and your paws on the path of perseverance.
Welcome the wide-eyed optimism that the new year brings new opportunities. Remember that grand goals are within grasp for resilient and relentlessly resolute reachers. Turn your fruitless frustrations into an optimistic outlook.
May 2024 be the year you shed your Resolution Wrecker moniker and take up the mantle of a strong, savvy, and successful striver.
To a purr-fect year ahead,
Tabby
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Write to Dear Tabby at:
deartabby@pawzhub.com
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P.O. Box 4995
Westlake Village, CA 91359
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