New Year’s Resolutions

Now that the new year is almost upon us, we may hear a lot about new year’s resolutions ~ we even may have one or two ourselves...

Research has shown that among the top new years resolutions are resolutions about weight loss, exercise, and stopping to smoke. Also popular are resolutions dealing with better money management / debt reduction. Resolutions about self improvement (taking classes or even going back to school), helping others and finding true love complete the list of most common new year’s resolutions.

So what, other than the fact that new year signals a new beginning, makes this time such a good time to come up with new year’s resolutions?

With the start of Winter, the shortest day of the year, an energy of introspection, together with the ‘return of the light’~ the days that are getting longer; but also Christmas with its own perspective on ‘the return of the light’ ~ makes that these ten days of the year are really geared toward planning what it is you want to accomplish over the next year ~ starting new year’s day.

Now we all know, that it is really hard to keep with our new year’s resolution after the first couple of weeks, when the holidays are over and we are rapidly returning to our ‘business as usual’ lives.

But we can still benefit from taking some time to really look at where we want to spend our energy over the next year.

To write down, not only our traditional new year’s resolution, but also what we desire to accomplish in our everyday life, as well as what we hope to achieve from a mental standpoint, and what we are reaching for from a spiritual perspective.

I have found that to get the most out of my, let’s say, expanded new year’s resolutions, just listing them is not enough. It works a lot better for me when I make plan for how I want to get where I want to go...
To ask myself what steps I am willing to take toward my goal for this year. To see how much time and energy I am really willing to give it on a daily basis. And to plan my days, my life, accordingly...

The first time I went through this ‘exercise’, my ‘every day life’ goals were easiest to come up with. But looking back they were also the easiest to forget, after the holidays were over. My more mental goals were harder to come up with, but easier to follow up on. Spiritually, I had no idea... I decided to plan for a 10 minute meditation every day.
As it turns out, I have gained a lot from that daily 10 minute meditation...

So the steps to permit for the new year to really be a new start are:
List what you want to accomplish.
Ask yourself how much time and energy you are willing to give it every day.
Plan the steps you are going to take toward your goals.
Start doing it!