Be Kind to Yourselves as You Draft your Resolutions

Are you drafting your resolutions yet? Or maybe I should say, beating yourself up? It's that time of year when we take stock of our lives and think of what we want to change going forward. These new year's resolutions are meant to be positive, aspirational statements, but more often than not, it's just another excuse to be hypercritical of ourselves.

With just a few days to go until New Year's Eve, I want to inspire you to stop being so hard on yourself. Take a moment to think about your successes instead of about the things you want to change.

My food photography is a perfect example.

I can go on for a good thirty minutes about my struggles with food photography. I work so hard at it, shooting my recipes from every conceivable angle, and often end up with blah pics with a yellowish tint. The draft of my resolutions features food photography at the top of the list, along with a pessimistic note that I might die trying!

These short ribs aren't exactly appetizing.

But today, while working on a very cool still secret project, I combed through every recipe I've published on this blog. And I realized that my food photography has improved... drastically. The food in my pictures was scary, dark, threatening unidentifiable lumps on busy plates. Now there is lightness and texture in my food, and it looks like something you'd like to eat, most of the time, even with that stubborn yellowish glow. I'm still nowhere near where I'd love to be, with photographs that would make a blind man salivate, but I am light years better than when I started. And that's worth celebrating.

So don't wait for midnight to pop the champagne. Crack the bottle early and celebrate what you've done this year. Approach your resolutions with a positive attitude, gearing up for more success in 2011. Suddenly your resolutions won't seem like such a painful exercise.