by gillian claire: It's January 30th and I Want to Throw in the Towel...

I have a serious love/hate relationship with New Year's resolutions. There is something about the idea of setting resolutions each January that gets me very excited... it's the same way I feel about school supplies in the fall, new planners or notebooks + moving to a new house with empty cabinets and closets full of potential...

(This picture seriously captured my reality as a boy mom- haha!)

There's another side to New Year's resolutions that completely stresses me out. I start scribbling down such specific goals and feelings that sometimes get too extreme and too exact and pretty much set me up for feelings of failure. Then 2 weeks in, I start to realize that my life is still chaos and it's not about to make a complete turnaround any time soon. (Surprise, surprise, the New Year didn't magically fix all of life's problems!)

So yeah, we're at the end of January and I'm here to say that my work/life balance is still a shit show. I'm trying to eat healthier but yesterday I laid in bed eating Doritos while watching a Tina Fay movie. My kids watch too much TV and I haven't invited any of their friends over for a play date in 2018 because I stress out if my house isn't spotless. (Side note: my expectation of a perfectly clean house with 2 little boys running rampant is probably set too high!)

I'm stressed, y'all, can you tell?

I'm not sure why I'm so hard on myself but I figure a lot of you can probably relate which made me want to come here and spill my thoughts.

Maybe I'm a little caught up in that Instagram mentality of scrolling and seeing nothing but positive, perfectly curated achievements. I guess mentally I want to lay in bed at the end of the day and scroll through my "perfect day" as well: green smoothies + bootcamp-level workouts, a perfectly clean house, a completely organized and profitable business and two little boys sleeping in clean sheets after a seamless and wonderful day...

The biggest downfall to expecting perfection is that I'm never going to get there so I'll always be let down. Within that life of constant letdown, I'm going to miss all the things that I am doing well which is kind of the pattern I'm in right now. I do a lot of things well but somehow at the end of the day, I'm thinking about the things that didn't happen or the things that didn't feel perfect to me.

I don't know the solution for sure, but this is where I'm at on January 30th. I'm working on resolutions and I'm acknowledging that my thought process and focus needs to change.

I want to find a healthier way to be and exist. Because honestly, who wants to live in a world where you're punished for watching a movie on a Sunday afternoon in bed with junk food?

There has to a better way that creates room for both. :)