As we get ready to celebrate this new year, I hope that you can do just this one thing.

Take a look.

Before you start with the resolutions and the plans to make changes, look.

Before you start judging yourself as less than and setting up your New and Improved Plan for Me, look at what you've already done.

Look at who you really are. Not the messy bun, or the yoga pants, or the less than immaculate house, or any of the whatever we as women and mothers leap to at this time of year.

Did you fail this year?

Good.

If you failed, you learned.

You will have success in your life. You will, but you cannot appreciate it if you never fail and you can never ever fail if you aren't trying. So keep trying. Keep reaching and stretching and, sometimes, not quite getting there because that will bring lessons and wisdom and ultimately more success.

Did you treat people kindly, only to have them walk away with no reciprocation?

Good.

Kindness is a gift to yourself as much as it is to others. Give it freely with all abandon regardless of whether or not it is returned. The impact you make on others isn't often seen immediately. The impact you make on yourself, when you live your life with joy and love, is instantaneous. Never hold that back.

Did your selfless acts of motherhood go unnoticed and unrewarded?

Good!

Motherhood is a 'hood plain and simple and there is nothing that is going to change that.

The love and dedication you show to your children is your investment in what God has granted you. He gave you those babies to raise into who He has planned for them to be and He decided you, and ONLY you, were the best mother they could ever have. Whether your children came to you by birth, family, adoption, or otherwise they came to you because ultimately He planned for them to be loved by you. Your reward comes later, I promise. Besides, no mother, when she decides to become one, does so for the golden ring. She does it because she was designed to love and to give and to invest in someone else before herself. (Spa days notwithstanding, Ladies.)

I pray that if you really look at yourself, you will see exactly what I see in you.

That what you are more than enough and much more than you think you are.

That you can believe wholeheartedly in you because you are important.

That you are perfect just as you are.

I pray that you see this past year's failures and flaws for exactly what they are: quiet imperfections that should be celebrated, instead of diminished or weeded out.

Because there is no New Year resolution, diet, organization plan, or makeover that can improve on what is already perfectly designed.

You.

So, go ahead. Set goals for the new year and dream big.

But, my friend, please do not change YOU.

*** Tag a Mama you love who is already perfectly perfect.

Happy New Year, my loves. ***