Happy New Year everyone! I always love a new year and the freshness of January. Putting away all the Christmas decorations, cleaning the house, purging old stuff/things I don’t want and preparing for a fresh start mentally and physically. Setting goals. Getting rid of habits or things or people who no longer serve me.
Who else agrees? My 2022 sure ended on a sour note though- I had the flu all during Christmas and felt horrible so the entire holiday break felt crummy and not festive. I literally woke up Christmas morning with tightness in my chest, felt lethargic, and could feel sickness coming on. Sure enough as the day progressed I felt worse and worse and ended up spending the whole day in bed, basically. We were out of town visiting family so when we got back on the 26th I went straight to the urgent care and was positive for the flu – YUCK! Christmas did not feel the same since I was sick – it was basically ruined. Oh well, there’s always next year.
Anyhow, with some rest and hydration and patience I was feeling more like myself later that week. 2022 was honestly a year of disappointments and I know many of you had your share of challenges as well. That is what LIFE is! It’s filled with challenges and unexpected road bumps — but it’s how we handle the road bumps that determine the outcome. To recap some of my 2022 challenges:
- I got covid in June
- I was diagnosed with hip labral tear in July and had to give up ballet (and my hope of auditioning for the Magic City community cast Nutcracker which was my initial intention)
- I strained a rotator cuff muscle in my shoulder in mid-August
- Spent July – December in physical therapy due to the above-mentioned injuries
- Aggravated my knee doing heavy hip thrust 2x a week
- Had another ovarian cyst rupture after getting acupuncture in early December (and have since had to give up acupuncture since it’s happened about three times now and I can’t be sure that it’s not being caused by the acupuncture which is a bummer as acupuncture relaxes me)
- Got the flu over Christmas break
- Was rear ended at a red light and had to put my car in the shop and get a rental for a few weeks
All of these “things” happened in the latter half of 2022, and I learned a lot from most of the experiences. It was annoying getting two illnesses in the same year as I have not had the flu in over ten years! But in terms of my shoulder and hip injuries I did learn so much throughout the physical therapy process and now I consider myself a hip labral repair expert when it comes to what to do and what not to do. As far as my knee goes, it’s doing better! I just realized I can’t do hip thrust 2x a week for multiple weeks on end. While the hip thrust is a wonderful lower body building move, you can certainly over-do it if you don’t give yourself enough time to recover – and the heavy weight turned out to be aggravating my knee. I took a 3 week break from hip thrust and 2 weeks off the bike and my knee got better!
Reading DAVID GOGGINS’ books Can’t Hurt Me and his new book Never Finished without a doubt helped my mindset during my challenges. Any time I would feel depressed about my injuries I would read a chapter or two from his books and instantly my mood was transformed. We are all going to endure some crappy things in life – and we can either throw in the towel and give up and let the situation ruin our day/week/year OR we can learn from the situation and try to make the best of it. I did my best to stay positive and KEEP GOING even when I felt defeated – and when I got the flu over Christmas I just told myself to rest and get better and then I can start January 2023 on a positive, healthy note.
For 2023 I am hopeful. I want to continue to read books, as that was my 2022 resolution to read a book each month. I read 54 books last year, and will continue to read this year. I hope to avoid injuries this year – if I can help it. I am training smarter and trying not to overdo it when it comes to lifting weights (as I have tended to do in the past). I am working on learning Spanish again! That is a new goal of mine for the year. I took Spanish in high school and some in college, so I know a small amount of the language and would love to become fluent so that I can travel to Spain and elsewhere (even just a quick trip to one of my favorite cities, Miami) and speak the language. I have the Babbel app and my goal is 10-15 mins per day work on my Spanish. It’s also something very good for my brain to practice and it’s a nice break from “all things fitness” related in my typical daily lifestyle. In terms of my health I want to get more regular massages (since I can’t really do acupuncture anymore as I stated earlier), do cold therapy/cold rinses, and continue to do my strength and cardio workouts as normal. I also plan to keep up my not-drinking-alcohol momentum that I created in October! It has been the best thing for my sleep and energy levels!
What are you working on this year? Any goals or travel plans or things you’d like to improve about yourself? Please reach out to me and let me know!
Here is a pic from December 23 – the only day I felt pretty good on the Christmas holiday!
Kelly Hayman Fitness 
You are right, Kelly…we are all going to face unforeseen obstacles in our life…that is a given. Having the ability to know what we can control and what we cannot is key to working through those obstacles. The Serenity Prayer is a good guide for that:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Grant me the courage to change the things I can,
Grant me the wisdom to know the difference.
You are lovely and, despite your illness during what should have been a happy Christmas holiday, you continue to stay positive and lead by example!
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