Happy New Year!
It’s once again the start of a new year and we are all making resolutions that we believe we need to make in order to be a better person in the upcoming new year. We tend to make plenty of resolutions as the new year approaches. But those resolutions, starting out strong and determined, rarely seem to make it past the first week of practice. Why is it that an intention, with strong motivation, fizzles so quickly? If this happens to you, maybe it’s time to try a new approach.
Before I lay out this new approach, let’s look at the difference between the words “resolution” and “goal.” As defined on merriam-webster.com, resolution is “the act or process of resolving.” “Resolving” is defined as “to find an answer or solution to something.” Resolution then is the process you must go through to find a solution. Goal is defined as “something that you are trying to do or achieve.” There is a difference.
Given these definitions, goals are what you use to achieve your resolution. The problem with our inability to stick to our resolutions lies in how we are looking at them. Too many times we set our “resolution” as a goal. For instance, regarding health (change our diet, exercise more, become more mindful), relationship (improve existing relationships, start new healthy relationships), and personal (start a new hobby, join a club, become well-read), etc.
I am looking at resolutions differently this year. I will make one resolution with the goals under it that I wish to achieve. That resolution is to love myself. If I love myself, then I will find the motivation to do whatever it takes to fall in line with that maxim. As I work every day toward improving my mindset to always keep my best interests foremost, I will start treating myself with kindness and forgiveness, accepting my faults, and realizing that I am fallible. As I do, I will look at my goals in a whole different light.
In this process, goals do not become the ultimate resolution. They come about because I am more loving of myself. I can reset a goal when I need to. Adjust it. Restart it. Exchange it for something completely different if I choose. I will change whatever goals I need to change in order to support my most important aim — that of loving myself.
Goals take a position subordinate to my ultimate resolution. Important, yes, but not a do-or-die principle that I am bound to give up on when they don’t work out. And in the end, what’s most important is giving ourselves the love that we so readily supply to others, but rarely mete out to ourselves.
If this resonates with you, try this approach. You don’t have to wait until the last minute of another year. Start now. Whenever and however you are this moment. You owe it to yourself.
Copyright 2022, Monica Nelson
