Starting January first, your entire life is going to shift.
All that courage you have been missing will be mustered up, and BOOM as soon as you wake up on the first day of the new year #2018, you will have the necessary resources, the mindset and the guts to go on and make those life altering set of decisions.
This year is going to be different. The same way 2017 was different. Or so you would hope. Or so, we all would hope. Except like every year, I have such a hard time coming up with good-sounding resolutions. You know the ones that seem almost practiced, to sound extra self-indulgent and hopeful when you say out loud. [Like this year I am going to practice a more minimalist/vegan…any-ist lifestyle, that video I saw on Facebook was a wake up call.] Yeah, I don’t have those.
My resolutions tend to erupt from within after I have sobbed for three and a half days over an existential crisis. My resolve is tested on the daily, do I go to the gym or do I relax at home with my cat by my side and call it a day? Do I do this or that? …every single day. I cannot even imagine how difficult it would be to bottle up all of these little decisions to be made on a single (life changing) day. So be warned, most of those resolutions end up being one-timers. Almost every change in your life, requires practice. The idea is always much more exciting than the actual execution.
See the thing is, and brace yourself for this wonderful and mind boggling sentence: Today was the future last month. And tomorrow, today will be yesterday. So never wait till tomorrow to change your life. Inspiring use of words, NO?
The point of the above “state the obvious” sentence is that all you have is your choice today, NOW. Start with the silliest and most minute goals, and go from there. You have to teach your brain how to perceive achievement. You have to rewire your system to a new achievement oriented process, one where failure becomes part of the process and not the end.
So, if your new year’s resolution is joining the gym for example, try this:
1- Look for a gym that will fit well within your schedule, think proximity, and practicality in relation to your daily routine. Make it easy for yourself.
2- Start your membership before January first. Consider the 2 days prior to the New year as try-outs. Devise your plan, create and schedule your workout. Ask for help.
3- Set tiny goals when you wake up in the morning. When a habit is brand new, you will need to make the same choice a few times during the day, because your brain and your body do not want you to switch things up, they do not want you to gear off auto-pilot. Read this book if you haven’t: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
It is always wonderful to hear somebody, almost everybody saying that they want to improve something about themselves or their lives. It stops being so wonderful, when the resolution becomes a broken record every year. It becomes sad when you keep postponing, and pathetic when the excuses are shined and dusted anew every year. So just do one thing for now. Just one tiny little change in your life, and it will snowball beyond your imagination.
As for me, my resolutions for this year, well they will come, probably in a more dramatic post at 3 AM on a Tuesday, where I overuse words like truth, light, life, kindness, love and peace.
Uplifting Letters 