01/01/2024
In some parts of the world, we’re coming into Carnival season. Historically known as Shrovetide, Carnival season is the pre-Lenten season that ends on a day that is synonymous with Louisiana - Mardi Gras. I grew up in south Louisiana where it seems that 12 out of 10 people you meet are Catholic. Obviously, that’s not possible, but you get my point. Anyhow, I was one of them.
I loved the Mardi Gras season: the parades, the floats, all the things. I loved it with as much excitement as I disliked the 40 days that followed Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). Ash Wednesday immediately follows Fat Tuesday and if you’re Catholic, you know what that means: Lent. When you’re young, you like certain things - love them even. For me, it was talking on the phone for hours with friends, listening to the radio on my “boombox” with an empty cassette tape loaded, waiting for my call-in request to be played by the DJ so that I could record it, Oreos and bananas (yes, together), Little Debbie Star Crunch, and eating Planter’s cheese balls while watching the Brady Bunch on TBS when I would get home from school. You know the ones; they were packaged in a blue, cardboard, cylindrical container with the Planter’s peanut guy on the label and if you pushed them to the roof of your mouth while you ate them, you would tear up your palate. I can’t be alone here; surely there are those of you reading this who just relived a moment of your childhood when you did the exact same thing.
As a child I viewed Lent as little more than the space of time between Mardi Gras and Easter during which I was required to give up something, and my parents made sure it wasn’t sweet peas, of which I wasn’t a fan to begin with. They made sure it was something like chocolate, which wiped out my Oreos AND my Star Crunch, along with anything else that remotely included chocolate. I’ll be honest: I hated it. I hated giving up something I loved. I lacked the awareness at that young age to appreciate that I was giving up something that was wasn’t exactly good for me anyway – a vice.
Today, January 1, many of us will make New Year’s resolutions, a practice that dates back 4000 years to the Babylonians. Whereas their resolutions were things such as returning borrowed objects, ours run the gamut from resolving to eat more vegetables, exercise more, drink more water, improve finances, lose weight and most popular of all: resolutions that fall beneath the umbrella of improving mental health. Whether it’s assessing your drinking habits, developing a hobby, committing to a better sleep routine, reducing screen time, or practicing mindfulness, what each of us feels we should do to improve our mental health will differ and depends on where we believe we’re deficient today.
While there are those who make resolutions today, some won’t and that’s perfectly acceptable. There have certainly been years when I haven’t – when I’ve considered my failure to follow through with previous year’s resolutions and felt it pointless to try again. What caused that failure? Maybe I was unrealistic to begin with, maybe I didn’t plan well, maybe I wasn’t ready, or maybe I was exhausted from all the things I already had on my plate and adding to it a resolution to do more wasn’t in my playbook.
We are a busy society. We do A LOT. We do a lot that’s good for us and we do a whole hell of a lot that’s not good for us. What if today, while thinking of the expectations you have of yourself for 2024, instead of resolving to DO something, you take an approach like Catholics do during the Lenten season, and resolve to NOT DO something? Because that’s the bigger story of how we hold ourselves back. It’s in the things we DO that our mental health is taking a back seat. It’s those things that we continue to DO that keep us from becoming the best version of ourselves. There are probably countless things each of us could do to be better, but what are the things we must STOP doing?
I think of a handful of times when I’ve wanted to significantly change my hairstyle. I get to the salon and sit in my stylist’s chair. I scroll through the screenshots I’ve taken on my phone and show her. Do you know that I end up showing her more pictures of what I DON’T want than pictures of what I DO want? Have you ever done the same? Have you ever illustrated to someone what it is you want by leaning more on showing them what you don’t want?
We can do the things, but if we don’t stop doing the other things, the net change won’t be what we want it to be. You can make the perfect cake batter, but if you put it in the oven on broil, your cake is going to be s**t. You can meditate every single day but if you follow it with negative self-talk, you won’t greet 2025 with the mental health you desire. You can volunteer more, but if you feel drained and uninspired, maybe instead, you need to learn to say “no”.
Take the first week of the new year to think about the things you will NOT DO this year. Make a list, put it into practice and try a “giving up things that aren’t serving me” approach to 2024.
Make 2024 YOUR YEAR by NOT doing a few things.
- Stacey Lawrence Coaching
