"New Year, New Me"

This ramble comes together as we go careening into another year without having had time to recover from the doozy of one that just ended.  I’ve been trying to reflect on where I’m heading and what changes might need to occur in my life, and I suspect that you might be doing the same.

This brings us to the “new year, new me” expression.  Is it appropriate?  Maybe.  It’s certainly a popular phrase.  Simple, straightforward, and catchy enough that it’s easy to remember (or include as a hashtag as your social media influencing needs might dictate).  People use it to bring a little excitement to their resolutions or to add a sense of resolve as they step forward into a whole slew of challenges that the year holds for them – especially, albeit not exclusively, in the realm of fitness and health.

But I’m not really here to focus on the fitness stuff.  Plenty of others in this field are far better at inspiring people with actionable exercise tips or useful perspectives on eating habits.  Instead, I’m a little more interested in our general sense of self and the idea behind personal reinvention.  The notion of a “new me” implies that the *old* you was bad -- that you need to toss it out like so much refuse or exchange your old self for the next year’s model.

You probably see where this is going.  Negative self-image – at least when taken to extremes – can often get in the way and hold us back.  It’s easy to spend too much time or energy beating ourselves up over perceived flaws, leaving less for us to invest in actually DOING something productive.

Now don’t get me wrong; I understand the notion of reinvention and the desire to turn the page.  I’m doing a lot of that myself.  I also recognize that I’m a MASSIVE hypocrite here, given my penchant for ruminating over all kinds of problems and failures in my own life.  My suggestion is simply that we take care not to turn our dissatisfaction inward to such a degree that we mistakenly condemn *ourselves* instead of the habits or baggage that we’ve carried (which I would argue are often the real culprits when we find ourselves less happy than we think we should be).  We are fine.  We don’t need an overhaul.  The overhaul is for our behaviors and perspectives.  The “us” underneath – or the “you” underneath -- was always good enough.

You don’t need a new “you” to embrace better things.  You just need to make better decisions.

So perhaps we can temper the heavy-handed “out with the old, in with the new” approach with a little subtlety.  It’s absolutely valuable to identify bad habits, unhealthy relationships, or underdeveloped qualities in ourselves.  But once we’ve done that, maybe it’s wise to think of this process not as replacing or rebuilding ourselves, but rather as “upgrading” ourselves and revealing parts of us that were always there, waiting to be revealed.  New skills, interests, and virtues, the seeds of which have always been there inside us.

We’re going to focus on some of that with this site.  Maybe the improvement you seek involves learning more about your craft and improving certain aspects of your skill set as a professional – be that with evaluating exercise technique; making sensible “macro-level” nutrition/training decisions; reading and applying research; or just being a better overall thinker.  Maybe it involves cultivating a better network of fellow professionals and enthusiasts.  Or maybe you just want to have more meaningful discussions about some really cool stuff.  In any of those cases, I’ve got you.  As I focus on my own new year, the “new me” that I’m really interested in creating isn’t new at all.  Rather, I want to get back to more of what I love: nerding out over science, thinking about intriguing (and often convoluted) topics, fostering fun conversations, and maybe just a little bit of playful ribbing about stuff in this industry that seems weird to me.

I hope you will come along for that ride.

And don’t worry.  The next bit I write will probably a little more technical and Geoff-like, with more of the pedantry that people who know me have come to expect (whether this is good or bad, I cannot say).

Be well, folks.

- G

P.S. -- If you enjoyed this topic and want to explore things like it further, be sure to check out our membership options HERE.  We have weekly Q&A roundups, short special topic videos, full-length course lectures, and even a discussion forum where you and other members can talk about this stuff (or toss your questions directly at Alex and me!)