Welcome to the New Year and Your Resolves

You made them, right? And you know you’ll be breaking them, most of you, anyway. And even those who keep them, may not keep all of them. We’re talking resolutions, right?

Roughly half of us will make New Year’s Resolutions. Of that group, about 8% will keep working on them. Not many folks walking around doing their resolutions to make you feel guilty! In fact, in a set of 100 friends, you might have three or four who hang in.

Why do we give up on resolutions?

I believe one reason resolutions are so hard to keep is at the top of this post. These are just words we want to translate to transformation. However, they’re like trying on an itchy new sweater. It just feels weird on your body. What feels comfortable to you are your old clothes. Well-worn, tried and true. Like the unhealthful eating habits you’re trying to replace with more healthful ones, the new habits aren’t yet habits. They’re ideas on papers. It takes work to make an idea into a habit.

Another reason resolutions are hard to keep, it occurred to me, is that there is so much baggage associated with the term “resolutions” (and past failures to follow through). Perhaps if we went back to a root word, we’d have more success. “I resolve to . . .” The word resolve means to decide firmly on a course of action. Whereas “resolution” (a noun) means the same thing, it just sounds wimpier (to me) than the verb “resolve.” Resolve sounds like a solution for an issue.

What do you really want in life?

So why do it? Why engage in the ritual of making resolutions? What do you really want in life? Reflect on each part of you and think what you need. What you want. But instead of making a list of resolutions to break, try this.

Hop on the one-word bandwagon. I’ve written about this in the past. You pick one word to focus each part of your life on—physical, emotional, and mental—and post the word where you see it every day.

I’ve been doing the one-word thing for a few years now, and I like it LOTS better than resolutions. My word this year is momentum. For exercising, which I hate, keep up the momentum. For writing and submitting to contests. Keep up the momentum. In relationships, keep up the momentum. In losing weight, keep up . . . well, you get the idea. One word to bind them all. Hmm. Why does that ring a bell?

I wrote a post on another blog about challenging yourself this year in your writing. Use your one word to spur you on. Check out The Year of Writing Dangerously

In case you’re interested in reading more about the making and breaking of resolutions and why we even do them, I’ve assembled a collection of posts to read below.

Did you find this an interesting post? If so, please share with others.

Facebook: Resolutions, schmesolutions! Improve your life the easier one-word way instead of making resolutions you’ll break. http://bit.ly/2DIIgSf

Twitter: #NewYearsResolutions are so last century! Check out this alternative AND be more successful with the changes you want to see. Join the #oneword movement http://bit.ly/2DIIgSf

Resources on New Year’s Resolutions:

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/latest-news/article188766114.html

https://www.livescience.com/42255-history-of-new-years-resolutions.html

https://www.livescience.com/42255-history-of-new-years-resolutions.html

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-actress-danielle-brooks-doesn-140000642.html

https://answers.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AwrTHRAOJCxa1AkAIgxXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTExbGtvMmJiBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDVUlDMV8xBHNlYwNzYw--?p=why+make+new+year%27s+resolutions&fr=tightropetb

https://www.christianpost.com/voice/four-reasons-why-we-fail-in-keeping-our-new-years-resolutions.html

https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/holidays-other/why-make-new-years-resolutions.htm

Never Make or Break a New Year's Resolution Again

I have absented myself from a good bit of social media engagement for many months. Personal and professional reasons caused me to limit interactions. But I'm back, with what I hope will be interesting and sometimes provocative posts about interactions among family, friends, and strangers. Titled "Romance Righter", these blog posts are about all kinds of love, including loving yourself, not just the romantic kind. So read on!

A dear friend and my bestest, long-standing crit partner and I were talking about making New Year’s Resolutions. I listed mine last year in a blog post. Sad to say, a huge number were (like most of Americans’ resolutions) broken. Some even shattered. Sigh. Same ole, same ole, right? Good intentions and the road to hell got more pavement laid down.

Sandy said she doesn’t “do” resolutions; she hasn’t done so for years. She was reacting to the negativity of the concept. Her point was that to make a resolution is to say “I must have stuff wrong with me if I have to identify ways to fix me. Ways, by the way, that I will likely violate and never resolve so what’s the point?”

Umm. She had a point.

Instead, Sandy chooses a word to live by for the year. A word that she reaches through meditation. A word that she can apply to the multiplicity of elements that make her, her.

In 2015, her word of the year was “Wisdom.”

In 2016, she chose “Harmony.” She will strive for harmony in the cells of her body, the balance of personal and professional activities, and in making choices that affect all areas of her life. She posts her word for the year beside the door leading to her garage so she sees it each time she leaves her home.

Is that brilliant or what?

Never one to be left behind when great ideas float into my path, I jumped on that right away. But picking a word of this import is not so easy. I latched onto a number of words, most of which were my former resolutions boiled down to one word. “Judgementaless” (huh?). “Write”. “Reduce”.

That kind of thing, and it just wasn’t working. I was stuck in the “broken me” paradigm. I wasn’t really getting the intent of Sandy’s progressive perspective. And then it came to me.

My 2016 word, posted in bold and large print next to my workspace, is “Mindfulness”.

The word reminds me (ha! See?) to thoughtfully consider my decisions and to be present in the moment instead of regretting the past or living in the future.

And you know that serendipity thing? The synchronicity thing? Once you latch onto a word, it's everywhere. It's amazing to me how many times I have encountered the term since January.

When I am mindful, I make eating decisions with awareness. When I am mindful, I make exercise decisions deliberately. When I am mindful, I choose to hold onto grudges or let them go. As a mindful person, I make choices about the balance between my professional-writing time and personal-connections time. It plays out in every aspect of my life so far.

And so far it is working better than my resolutions ever have. I chose to write about this, half way through February, because by this time most of us will have broken one or many more resolutions.

But with mindfulness staring back at me the whole time I am at my desk, I am more likely to take that break every hour so I don’t risk heart disease. With mindfulness in my sight, I am more likely to write when I am at my desk than get caught up in the social media blender. Mindfulness challenges me to consider implications of personal interactions and conversations. And even unspoken thoughts. I am more mindful of making judgments about people’s actions and motivations.

Am I perfect? Am I always mindful? Pshaw! You know that isn’t so, but each time I note mindfulnesses presence, I am reminded of what I promised myself 2016 can be. And I am more mindful than I have ever been. That’s good news for 2016.

What word would help you to move through this year more successfully?

Old Soul for the New Year

The Party’s Over, It’s Time to Call It a Day… One year ends. A new year begins.

The New Year is a special gateway, I believe. It’s a magical, mystical time for me. Maybe that’s what made me take that Internet quiz, “How Old is Your Soul?” What is on the horizon? What magic awaits? What challenges will I confront? This year will be like no other ever has been. What’s not to like about that?

The notion of old souls pulls at me. Since I believe in reincarnation, the idea that one comes back and back to resolve issues with individuals or character traits appeals. I get another shot (or six) at trying to improve myself. One gets to be an old soul, not by returning so much, but by working out those issues so that each lifetime has fewer areas in need of resolution.

When someone labels me an old soul, it’s supposed to be a compliment. A recognition that I am higher-evolved than many of their acquaintance. That I have learned many of life’s lessons.

The fact that I am again corporeal, am living another life after having lived many others, is evidence that I haven’t learned all I need to know to be the highest evolved. I am here to work out character flaws that keep me from the highest level. I know that two of mine are my judgmental nature that is directly tied to how difficult it is for me to forgive grievances.

Knowing that about myself is better than not knowing, but I fear I will leave this existence still

bearing the onus of those flaws. (See how judgmental I am?) I think I am still a toddler (in developmental terms) in mastering those two areas. Sigh. I think it will take me a few more lifetimes to figure out how to let go of them.

So much as I like the label of old soul, I have to say it bugs me to be so labeled. The implication is the one telling you that is an old soul, too, recognizing a comrade. It takes one to know one? Is that hubris or what?

While I do feel I have an awareness of what I need to work on, I don’t feel like an old soul so much as a mature adult who assesses what lies ahead and sets about to do it. I know, because I am actually old, that my soul will not accomplish its tasks in this body. I am too far from achieving the goal and seem unable to make myself do what I know needs to be done.

Sigh. I’ll be back! See you next life.