Happy new year to you all. What a year I’m sure 2016 will bring. New years bring new excuses to have resolutions and goals. I’ve decided to try a different tactic.

At some point throughout the year you come to the realisation that new year resolutions have left a bitter taste in your mouth. For so many of you this comes with the age old resolution to lose weight. If you didn’t achieve it in 2015 how do you expect to find those successes in 2016? What can you change? Answer: your mindset.

This year I have decided to not make any resolutions for myself. Rather, be happy and content with my life exactly the way it is by embracing change and new ways of seeing the world that doesn’t come with expectation or promise.

For so long now many of us have genuinely believed that if we could just lose weight, we’d finally be happy and all of our problems would be solved.

Deep down you know this isn’t the truth. I’ve lost some weight in the past and within equal measure I have also gained some weight and no matter what the scales told me the problems I had were still right there staring me in the face. More often than not we tend to eat our way through our unhappiness and ending up right back where we started.

The key to happiness is important, but you will never find it in those extra kilograms you want to banish. So what can we do?

Putting an end to the strict diets and deprivation will probably be the only answer that you need. Your life will change forever. Wake up in the morning and make the conscious decision to accept your body exactly the way it is, only then will everything begin to move. Losing weight without the struggle and the obsessive monitoring is a guaranteed opportunity for you to never look back.

If you are familiar with the law of attraction, you’ll know that what you focus on becomes your reality. If you spend the majority of your life picking out your problems and flaws individually, thinking constantly about how you’re overweight and can’t fit into your favourite pair of jeans anymore, chances are that you’ll stay stuck in that place while the universe gives you more of what you’re focusing on.

So let’s shift the focus to the amazing things your body can do for you (I apologise for the mantra; the holidays consisted of me reading ‘Doctor Libby’s Beauty from the Inside Out’) and align yourself with what it was you were hoping your weight loss would achieve in the first place (confidence, self love etc) and you might just find that you begin to attract even more of that into your life, no matter your size or weight.

We don’t really help the cause as a nation. I was browsing style catalogs and magazines the other day in a bid to remind myself how silly and unrealistic the images were. It didn’t work. As i perused more of them, a burning and competitive jealously began to take hold. If I make it my top priority this year, how close could I come to being that thin and pretty? The various signposts of thinness: the jutting collarbones, the shoulder-blade wings, and their concave abdomens. Suddenly, nothing seemed more important than joining their tribe.

The power of the media and society ae? It’s a silver bullet theory of injecting consumers and average people like you and me with messages and ideas of how we should live our lives. Weight and appearance is just the start. If you thought smoking was an unhealthy obsession, try the millions of women and men alike out there who suffer from mental illnesses. It is all consuming and I know for a fact it will continue to get worse.

So here’s the thing- it is just a body. In this obsessive compulsive mindset we have mentally we are more likely to die way before we physically do. Those of us obsessed with rigorous exercise regimes and refusing to ever eat anything over 10 calories ever again are just as much at risk as someone overweight and sitting on the couch. If you die of a heart attack but have lived your life with unconditional happiness yet live a longer life imprisoned by strict diets and regimes, who is the winner?

January 1 is a date often marred by thoughts of regret and heartfelt vows to turn things around in the next 365 days.

Molly Galbraith’s image posted on social media on January 2 has had over 125,000 likes and 85,000 shares. Check it out here.

Molly sums it up for us all perfectly:

“This not a before picture. This is not an after picture. This just happens to be what my body looks like on a random Tuesday in December of 2015 — it’s a LIFE picture. This is a body that has been called: too fat, too thin, too masculine, too strong, too weak, too big, too skinny… all within the same week. This is a body that I spent too much time, energy, and mental space wishing would look differently. And today?”

“Today this is a body that is loved, adored, and cherished by the only person whose opinion matters.”

Instead of thinking we need to lose so much weight by only eating this many calories, only foods that are green and exercising every day, how about we think about self confidence and self worth, maintain a balanced diet and focus on becoming fit and healthy, not skinny and malnourished?

Life is for the living and if we spend our lives consumed by our imperfections and never measuring up to our impossible standards then how can we honestly say we have lived a wonderful life?

Deep down we know society and the media doesn’t help the cause, but so what. So you put on a few kg’s over Christmas? Congratulations on relaxing and enjoying your summer break. So you’ve gained weight after having a baby? You just brought life into this world, what an achievement in itself.

We are not in a position to pass blame and shame someone if they are too fat or criticise someone if they are too skinny. We aren’t in a position to judge someone based on that extra weight on their hips or their skinny legs. It’s a toxic circle and we all know what’s best. Exercise on occasion, have your fruit and vegetables, but also weigh it up with a piece of chocolate cake or some fish and chips on a Friday night. If you can find that balance you’ll be balanced in life.

So you could say this mantra is my resolution for the year. Stop forcing you and your body to be something it’s not. Live your life. Find eternal happiness and if you lose or gain some weight in the process without having a mental breakdown, then you’ll know you’ve found it.