When the Champagne Goes Flat: How to Stay Motivated after the Wild Optimism of the Holiday Season
Picture this: It’s several weeks into the new year, the holiday spirit, festive parties and the momentum of ending a year and beginning afresh have disappeared. The winter doldrums have set in. You begin to reflect on your resolutions—those old dogs—and you remember that you’ve promised to get out of the house and move your body more this year. This is an easy goal to set with a glass of champagne in your hand and vines and stars in your eyes.
However, now that your will, like the Veuve Clicquot, has gone flat, this feels like a big ask—particularly when it’s mid-January in New York City and the winter knife that slices through the avenues and along the streets cuts right into your soul. The shadows that begin to deepen around 3pm and envelop the streets in total darkness by 5pm make it difficult to go anywhere after work but straight home to your comfy fleece socks and your couch. And on some days, the wintry mix is enough to make you start browsing listings for condos in Sarasota.
It’s hard to stay motivated, particularly when the dazzle of the holiday season fades and the reality of the winter slog ahead feels ceaseless. However, at The Pilates Room, we believe that this is the best time of the year to become interior—not in the physical sense—but in the sense of being less distracted by your environment and more focused on your goals. This is the perfect time to start on the road to substantive change. Put aside the notion of resolutions for a moment—they can feel too restrictive and ultimately, can become oppressive catalogues of collapse. If you are looking to enact substantive change in your life, consider the following:
Substantive change is not quick. Think about the notion of human evolution, which clocks in somewhere in the impossible scope of…millions of years. Think about your current age and how long it has taken you to evolve into the person that you’ve become. How could we expect to make resolutions in January and see substantive change by March? Change often happens in the most minute increments. Allow for that possibility; budget months, not weeks for whatever tectonic changes you’ve decided on for your life.
Substantive change does not follow a straight line. Whenever you’re trying anything new, there is often a pattern of rapid growth followed by a plateau. This is not uncommon. And though it’s disheartening to see dips in understanding or ability after a steady period of success, it’s quite natural. If you’ve come to a point in your goals where you’ve stopped seeing progress, take a moment to accept that this is part of growth. Then, evaluate the reasons this may have happened: you’ve become complacent or bored with your new area of learning, or maybe the teaching methods have become repetitive. Maybe it’s easier to remain static on your current path than to move forward because you fear the prospect of failure. Simply reflecting on these options may open up a route to new growth.
Substantive change requires clear goals. Saying to yourself, I’d like to move my body more in the New Year might seem like a loose, viable proposition. However, ultimately it might be easy to convince yourself that moving your body can mean many different things, even walking to the store a few blocks away. Some days this might be all you can manage, but if you’re looking to achieve serious, long term goals, outlining specifics will help keep you on the right path.
We’ve seen many New Year’s resolutions fizzle out by mid-January. Don’t let that happen this year. Whatever it is that you’ve decided to achieve in the coming months, keep your goals realistic and give yourself a break if you don’t achieve them by the spring. Allow yourself plenty of time and space, and ask for help as often as you need it.
As a Pilates instructor, I understand that learning a new skill (let alone an entirely new system of movement!) can take time. But I’ve also seen clients achieve incredible results—better posture, greater flexibility and strength, more confidence—by sticking with Pilates training over the course of months and years. I’ve witnessed clients unlock an entirely new way to move through the world.
If one of your goals for this year is to move your body more, we may be able to help. Check out our offerings and sign up for a single private session or a group class today. No matter what your goals are for the year, give yourself patience to achieve them.