After spending several hours setting my goals and intentions at the end of 2012, I started to feel a little overwhelmed. Wow, I have a lot to do and accomplish in 2013. It was both an exciting yet exasperating realization. Ever felt like that?
Being an athlete, I am familiar with the notion of being in training. Once I got that distinction, I learned I didn’t have to know it all at once but I started out with this impossible vision of being an Olympic athlete. January’s can do that to the best of us.
My dream was quickly put to rest when all I could lift at the gym was 3 pounds. I had the end goal in mind and visions of a proverbial gold medal but 3 pounds was all I could muster. There were the days when I’d put on my gym clothes and stay in them all day long without actually working out. Or the nights I ate too much and I’d say, “Oh, I will just start tomorrow.” But little by little, within six months, I was able to lift fifteen.
“I’m in training,” I’d remind myself and I would never have learned that invaluable life lesson had I sprinted through that experience!
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
As women, we tend to live our lives sprinting from one event, goal, emotion, or relationship to the next. Deep down, I think we all know that a life well lived is not about the sprint. It is about the strong relationship and the days, weeks and months it took to foster that relationship versus the actual wedding day. It is about holding that baby in your arms and taking it night by night, studying week after week, taking one chemo session at a time til you are healthy, eating a few less calories, taking a few extra steps or working a few extra hours, day in and day out, towards our goals.
And when we’ve arrived at whatever our particular race day is (be it a relationship, work, fitness or beauty goal), we all know that it is all about the accumulation of days well lived rather than one moment or occasion!
BEAUTY GOALS FOR 2013
As for beauty, we see magazine ads that show us how we should look and we’ve been bombarded our entire lives with impossible expectations. We see the perfectly airbrushed Photoshopped model and we compare ourselves to that? Instead, why not just allow yourself the breathing room to practice towards your ideal look this year? You aren’t supposed to have it all figured out all at once. Take the pressure off yourself and say, “Agh, I’m in training” and enjoy the you that you are right now and the you that you are authoring day by day.
WHAT’S UP AT AUTHENTIC BEAUTY?
If you’ve read through this newsletter, you will see that we’ve got a lot going on at Authentic Beauty and it sounds like we are sprinting. But we are training to help you look your absolute best in 2013.
By the end of this year, if we’ve done it right, we will have helped thousands of women love what they see when they look in the mirror and encouraged you to give yourself the gift of attention!
