New Year, New Beginning
The Meaning of Resolutions
The end of the year is synonymous with setting New Year's resolutions for the following year because it's like some ritual in which the entire world participates. But what does it mean to set a resolution? A resolution is defined as the “quality of being determined or resolute” and “a firm decision to do or not do something.” Why do we so often lose our determination as the year passes? We do other things with consistency – our jobs and caring for our children and pets. Is consequence the difference between us remaining consistent in action and not? If we stop doing our jobs, we lose our job, potentially our house, and our life changes dramatically. If we stop watching over the things we love, like our children and pets, there are negative consequences to be had. It’s interesting, then, that we see self-care (which our resolutions are so often based around) as inconsequential and not worthy of consistency.
Our New Year’s resolutions are often like, “I’m going to eat healthier, hit the gym regularly, and lose weight.” We suddenly become determined to take better care of ourselves, as we spend so much time caring for others, and our personal needs have often gone by the wayside. Since last January, we have felt the consequences of putting our own needs aside. So, we decided that this would be the year. But somewhere along the way, we lose our will to continue. We would never lose our dedication to continuing to work or care for our children or animals, so why ourselves? Do we not need to care just as much as the ones we care for?
A Different Way of Looking at Resolutions
Instead of seeing resolutions as something we do come January 1st, we should start looking at resolutions as daily habits. Every day, we can be resolute in taking care of ourselves and our loved ones. When we do this, we are living with intention. So often, we get caught on the treadmill of life, just putting one foot in front of the other monotonously. It’s time to hop off the treadmill and go outside for a walk, where we can breathe fresh air and admire the beauty of what’s around us. Living with intention is like this - instead of letting life drag us, we decide how to live it. We wake up each morning and set a resolution for that day to take a thirty-minute walk, practice a self-care routine, to cook a healthy meal. When we live with intention, we can slow down and appreciate ourselves and those around us. We should make a habit of setting intentions (resolutions) for the day when we wake up, and we should reflect on our lives at the end of each day, not at the end of each year.
Resolutions Can Strengthen a community
Many around the world practice the habit of setting New Year’s resolutions. We can use this to create a sense of community and make the world a little brighter. In a way, it's a good support system knowing we are all in this together.
Imagine if everyone resolved to practice self-care each day. Our stress levels would likely go down, we’d be a little nicer to each other, and we’d all likely take more time to appreciate our friends and families. This small daily change has the potential for a large impact. Let’s start talking about daily resolutions instead of yearly ones. Let’s encourage each other to create healthy habits that last a lifetime. When we do this, the changes we make no longer become about ourselves but also about how we impact each other and what difference we make in the world.
Out with the Old, In with the New
What are some tangible ways to build better resolutions? Adding new, healthy habits is a great start, but we need to make room for them by eliminating old habits and anything that doesn't serve our purpose. Let’s reflect on our failures and embrace them, as they are our best learning opportunities. Learn and grow from the things that went wrong in 2022. And most importantly: nurture the things that have gone right. Even when they were small and seemingly insignificant, they counted towards meaningful growth and opportunities for learning.
We may not be able to pursue perfection or near perfection. We may not get everything to line up how we want it to. We may not even be able to make sense of everything in the past that we wish we could change. But we can choose to see that we are whole.
Avoid Swimming Up River
We often take the hard way without realizing it, instead of using our natural abilities to our advantage. We need to make sure we are playing to our strengths when setting goals for the new year ahead. This will allow us to make our flaws irrelevant! Most of us were raised to assume that improvement is about fixing what is wrong with us… Rarely do we stop to consider that we can also improve the things we are good at by building on our strengths. Strengths are the areas with the most significant room for growth because we build on skills and talents that we are predisposed to! Think of it like this – we can swim up the river against the current or let the river take us to our destination while floating along with its current. Focusing on the areas where we are strong opens opportunities to analyze our high performance, to see what patterns work, and how we can transfer these to our weaknesses.
Remember that learning is a process as we rewrite the old and make room for the new. Change is a process. Everyone slips up now and again. But we must not give up. Learning or trying something new has phases of success. It’s normal to feel like we’ve got it one week and lost it the next. This is because success takes hard work and perseverance. It's normal to slip up at times… However, when we persevere, what seemed counterintuitive suddenly becomes the new script, the new version of ourselves, and, eventually, second nature. A straight line. It is about phases, and working to our strengths makes this process easier.
We must stick with it when the going gets tough and not compare ourselves to others and our past achievements. It is important that we focus only on what we can do and what we want our future to look like. Again, it is hard to unlearn, but we can overwrite it with new experiences.
An Exercise to Get Started
Practicing this visualization exercise can help us begin: let us picture our life as a beautiful garden where we are peaceful and still. We tend to this garden with great care and allow things to grow, flourish, and fill the landscape with beautiful flowers and fruits. Suddenly, some old brown or stagnant growth comes into view, so we prune it and throw it in the compost bin.
We need to do this with old habits: prune and compost. It’s imperative that we tend to our life like a beautiful (and magical) garden and visualize it as such. Plant new seeds for growth, tend to them daily, and remove the weeds that threaten to take over or harm our garden. We must remember to water our garden daily to grow into something beautiful. Understanding that we can do all this is the first part of the journey. We must be compassionate with ourselves but also be unflinchingly honest. It’s okay to admit when a particular plant is no longer serving our garden and to replace it with something we love. Let us view our garden as a gift and treat it as such.
Progress, Not Perfection
We cannot “delete” old habits, but we can “overwrite” them with new ones. As we let go of something in our life that is no longer serving us, we can replace it with something that will fuel us, elevate our life to a new power, and make tremendous strides toward our goals.
We need willpower, self-discipline, grit, and determination to accomplish those resolutions successfully. Stay committed to goals, but remain flexible in the approach! We can create a life of passion by releasing ourselves from unreasonable expectations. It does not mean we should not dream big; we should relax and be open to things turning out differently than we envisioned.
Life’s journey is not a straight path, so if we are too rigid, we will likely find disappointment. Setting daily resolutions instead of yearly ones helps us avoid this. When we set rigid goals like “I’m going to lose 20 pounds by June”, we may be disappointed if that doesn’t happen. Instead, setting a daily goal to take a walk and cook healthy, nourishing meals brings joy and will likely bring us closer to our physical goals quicker than we imagined.
Making daily goals leads to less disappointment if we have one bad day. We can resolve to do better the next day. If we set yearly goals and don’t meet them, we will likely feel our year is ruined, and we failed. Instead, we can take those yearly goals and break them down into smaller, more manageable ones. This allows the flexibility needed to fit our goals into unpredictable life events.
Start Today!
Let us practice the garden visualization daily and keep a journal of our goals, as they may change as the year continues. Let’s all strive to live with intention and support our friends, family, and neighbors. Those who follow through will be amazed at how beautiful our life can become when we turn our resolutions into daily habits. These habits snowball much faster than one could imagine. It’s time to tend to our gardens and see them flourish into something amazing and full of life!
