The statistics for sticking to New Year Resolutions are dismal. My most used resolution was to quit biting my nails. Another popular personal resolution was to be more organized. These both make me laugh today so you can guess how successful I was at keeping them! So I say, forget the New Year’s resolution!

I did someone last year and I did it secretly. I wanted to see if it would work and since I didn’t seem to have much willpower when it came to resolutions. Last December I picked a word or a “theme” for the year 2017. My word was STRENGTH. I told no one. I picked this word with intention. I knew I wanted to be physically stronger and I also knew I would need a lot of mental strength to get through a few very big projects professionally. I thought this word STRENGTH would be the perfect theme to get through 2017.

Losing weight is the most common New Year’s resolution. Once I decided on my word I started working on my physical strength right away. In order to get stronger I needed to start eating better so I started following a meal plan and writing down everything I ate. I measured myself and began strength training. I took pictures so I could see the progress since I wasn’t going to “lose weight” but lose inches. So when the clock struck midnight on January 2017 I was already 5 days into making myself strong!

A few weeks into 2017 I began a class I was very much looking forward to: Brick House Branding. It began at the end of January and was 8 long weeks of honing into the knitty gritty of what I wanted the core of MamaSuds to be inside and out. It was HARD but it was necessary. My mental strength was challenged when I had to make key decisions on my business. I hired a graphic designer and stayed awake a lot of nights worrying about decisions I had made and whether they were the right ones. I hired a business coach/advisor that helped me through the really hard stuff and relied on my business network a lot. I bounced everything off my closest friends and family and in the end the results were nothing short of spectacular!

Sourcing new packaging took a different kind of mental strength: patience. Finding a bottle company who would sell me a small amount of bottles was exhausting. Then once I found them they changed the price on me a few times, then delayed the delivery so many times I wanted to say forget it and look for new packaging.

My body started changing from strength training and I developed muscles I never knew were there and muscles I hadn’t seen since high school. My physique was slowly transforming but my energy as what changed very quickly. Cutting out all the sugar I was consuming and the nonsense calories raised my energy levels dramatically.

Looking back on 2017: The Year of Strength, I feel accomplished and... strong!

What’s my 2018 theme? Stay tuned!

What is your word/theme for 2018?