New year, new you? Lucy Diamond and Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg on new beginnings
What is it about the new year that makes us feel that we need to make extreme promises to change ourselves? We're bombarded with messages to get fit, drink less wine, eat more kale and generally become super human. We caught up with Lucy Diamond and Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg to find out just how they felt about it, and if they had made any resolutions of their own...
What is it about the new year that makes us feel that we need to make extreme promises to change ourselves? We're bombarded with messages to get fit, drink less wine, eat more kale and generally become superhuman. We caught up with Lucy Diamond and Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg to find out just how they felt about it, and if they had made any resolutions of their own...
In new years gone by, I’ve definitely been guilty of going over the top with my resolutions. At five to midnight on New Year’s Eve, you’d find me vowing all sorts of extreme life changes for the months ahead. No more chocolate biscuits and plates of buttery toast, I would decide. No more boozy late nights with friends. Instead I’d embrace a strict diet and daily gym attendance. I would detox and purify, be calm and patient and serene. I would be so virtuous! So healthy! A positive paragon of good living!
Except… Well, it’s easy to promise these things on New Year’s Eve when you’re feeling invincible after several glasses of champagne. But by the second week of January – the second day sometimes – the prospect of all those joyless, wine-free, cake-denying, penny-pinching months to come would seem utterly impossible. My will-power would inevitably crumble and I’d end up feeling like a failure.
These days, I’ve wised up. Me plus fitness regime plus January is never going to work out when it’s freezing outside and there’s a great film on TV. Besides, life is too short to deny yourself the very things that make you happy. So I’m only making one resolution this year – and that is to have fun and enjoy myself as much as possible. I want to look back on 2015 and have loads of great memories to cherish. For once in my life, I reckon I’ve made a resolution I might just be able to keep.
Lucy Diamond's new novel, The Year of Taking Chances is out now!
Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg
Is it time to make New Year’s resolutions again?! Just imagine, if everyone managed to keep them every year we’d all be perfect by the time we reached fifty! In Sweden at New Year's Eve we say ”SKÅL” and drink champagne and wish ourselves and our friends a Happy New Year. But if I want to improve something in my life, I don’t wait until the New Year to change it, I do it immediately! Maybe you should ask the little old lady who broke all the rules, I’m sure she has some interesting resolutions for 2015...
Martha Andersson is a lady of a certain age (who has a reputation for breaking rules) but she agrees that sometimes rules can be fun – especially if you are making them up yourself!
Here are Martha’s resolutions for 2015:
1. Do a little bit of exercise every day, you never know when you might need to run . . .
2. Value your friends, spend time with them, create memories and laugh lots – they are the family that will accompany you into old age!
3. Go to Las Vegas! (If you need any convincing, have a read of The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again!)