Ground Rules for the Year of Fabulousness

It’s one week into the Year of Fabulousness — and what a week it’s been. An unexpected twist at work kept me on my toes and connected well into the night, rushing against the clock to manage urgent inquiries. At the same time, two days of business meetings swept me into the usual business travel concoction of planes, train connections, Uber, conference rooms, working lunches, pre-dawn wake-up calls, and about five Nespressos a day. Throw a bit of sleeping-away-from-my-own-bed insomnia into the mix and we’ve got a perfect recipe to kill the Fabulousness before it can even get off the ground.

And while this was a particularly busy one, looking at the year ahead there’s a whole lot more running in the pipeline. How, then, will I ever find the time to fulfill my resolutions? Even the simplified reset version made last week seem overwhelming in such weeks.

By Friday night I could feel the all-or-nothing variety of stress starting to creep in, along with a searing migraine and some familiar excuses:

• Excuse 1 – “I already missed three workout days this week. I may as well not bother. I’ll get back to my Fabulousness plan next week when I don’t have any travel scheduled.”
• Excuse 2 – “I haven’t had time to plan an afternoon tea for friends next weekend. Now it’s too late. It will have to wait until next month when I have more time.”
• …
• Excuse 99 – and so on

I needed to get back to the spirit of my Year of Fabulousness before it crashed into a perfectionist brick wall. So this morning I created a few ground rules to keep on hand for the crazy weeks, when the temptation to fall into a procrastination trap is particularly strong.

In no particular order, here are the Year of Fabulousness Ground Rules (especially useful for you all-or-nothing types out there who get derailed when things don’t go fully as planned):

Fabulousness Rule 1: Do A Little Every Day

I’m the first one to fall prey to the all-or-nothing trap. If I can’t do it right (aka perfectly), I postpone a task and then beat myself up for not sticking to the plan. Over the years this has led to a lot of inaction during periods when I can’t devote my undivided attention to a goal, which nowadays is pretty much never.

Lately I’ve been reading up on time management to see if I can somehow get on top of this conundrum. I came across a principle by Maria Ramsland in her book Simplify Your Time called Two Minute Pickups. Ramsand argues that time is cumulative and can be positively compounded by taking care of the small stuff directly: for example, putting those dishes straight in the dishwasher rather than leaving them for later, or making your bed as soon as you rise in the morning. It’s the day-to-day actions that clear up the clutter around you.

I wondered if this concept might apply to my resolutions. For instance, this week it wasn’t possible to work out but I made a point of taking the stairs instead of the lift at the airport and train stations in order to gain a few extra steps. Sometimes I don’t have time for a full meditation session but I use five minutes of my daily commute or tooth brushing routine for conscious breathing. A few minutes here and there can really add up in the long-term — and we can all afford five minutes less of Facebook surfing to commit to something of meaning in our lives.

Fabulousness Rule 2: It’s Better Done Than Perfect

This is the hardest one for us Type As. Few will argue that striving for excellence is a bad thing. However, it’s a fine line between excellence and perfection — and pursuit of the latter in every area of our life is all-absorbing. Time is a precious resource these days. Rare is the superwoman or superman that can excel at everything.

One of the things I have done to overcome the temptation to pursue all of my resolutions with 150% effort is to categorize them in relative order of importance. This way I can zero in on the “no misses” and consciously devote more time there. For resolutions falling into lower priority buckets, good enough has to be good enough. Say it and say it again: good enough is good enough. (Yes, my dearest perfectionists, it’s painful. But it does become easier with practice, I promise.)

Fabulousness Rule 3: Make Time for Fun (and Indulgence)

I can’t eat kale every day. Some Fridays I will come home and watch five episodes of The Big Bang Theory instead of doing readings for my Executive Master programme. Other days I’ll get all of this prep work done in advance. A few of this year’s decorating projects will take longer than expected. Some will be finished earlier than planned. All of this is OK. (Yes, really, it is.)

We seem to be going through a sort of extremism in society these days – and I’m not talking about the ideological variety. Extremism has infused everything from how we approach eating and fitness to work-life (im)balance, entertaining and even social engagements. Everywhere I turn it’s gluten-free, dairy-free and sugar-free everything. Insanity and SoulCycle. Always-on email, texts and social updates (we used to have a name for this – Crackberry – but now it’s just normal). Extreme sport, extreme beauty, extreme living.

Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one. – Dr. Seuss

 A balanced resolution plan (and life) builds in enough space for fun and indulgence from time to time. In life there is mess. There is the unexpected. Often the best creative ideas come to us in exquisite little unplanned moments. How many times has the answer to a perplexing question you’ve been tackling suddenly popped into your mind over a laugh at the coffee machine? Or while cooking dinner? Achieving goals and making space for fun aren’t mutually exclusive. They are necessarily complementary.

Fabulousness Rule 4: Celebrate The Small Wins

You don’t have to break out the bubbly to celebrate every small step toward your bigger goals (in fact, that might get a bit messy if you follow ground rule 1!). But taking a moment now and again to acknowledge progress goes a long way in sustaining positive momentum.

Last year, hubby and I consciously brought this practice into our lives. We had noticed that in the flurry of building a life together — marriage, first house, career progression and general life busyness — we flew past many of these milestones without so much as a pause for air.

We are both future-oriented planners by nature and this focus has served us well toward life’s big goals. After moving into our first house last year we had grand plans to renovate from top and bottom, inside and out. (One year later we have finally understood what everyone says about building a home being a lifetime endeavour.)

In that first year we didn’t manage to complete everything on our house wish list. But there were many small successes to celebrate along the way. I’ll never forget as we both watched with delight when the front gate opened and closed unimpeded after fixing a piece that had come loose and obstructed movement for three weeks. Then there was our first meal together on the terrace after the new garden furniture arrived. And the discovery of a rich variety in our garden as trees came into bloom one at a time throughout spring and summer, including a full harvest of fresh figs one week in July.

These small wins will stay with us, shaping the fabric of our experience together, long past the day we repaint the living room or finally replace the dreadful heating system.

Fabulousness Rule 5: Be Fabulous from the Inside Out

Resolutions reflect our desire to change something about ourselves, or our lives. They are innately personal. Yet, all too often we hold ourselves up to an external measuring stick that is unrealistic. Being fabulous means different things to different people, and it evolves at various stages of our lives. What is right for me may not be right for my neighbour.

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself – Mikhail Baryshnikov

The last (but not least) rule for the Year of Fabulousness is to define what fabulous means for me — right here, right now — with a measuring stick that is about being the best version of myself, not anyone else. Sure, there will always be someone smarter, more successful, thinner, prettier, more organized, more talented or better in whatever other realm I might use to compare on a particular day. But when you really think about it, the only thing that matters is making the most of the talents we possess and living with respect and compassion for ourselves, other people, and the earth.

Here’s to a Year of Fabulousness!

(Feature photo: Ryan McGuire / gratisography)