Old Thoughts on the New Year

The ritual of making resolutions on January 1st can set many people up for failure.

Yes, it can be helpful to set a time and date from which to start either making or breaking a habit. Action Precedes Motivation and the first step is always the hardest. However, applying force to an unmalleable object will cause it to break. Putting too much pressure on yourself too soon risks defeat, guilt, and an inclination to give up entirely.

How humans attempt to measure the passing of time has nothing to do with how our souls evolve organically within the space-time continuum.

Your best transformations happen when you are ready, which could be at 3:57 pm on some random Tuesday in March. All tangible changes in our lives begin on the inside with a change in our perspective. Focus on increasing your self-awareness so you can feel those shifts as they come, then run with it. Don’t put too much weight on a ‘start date’ that attempts to impose changes that aren’t ready to happen.

Always remember that healing, growth, and progress are not linear processes. Everyone’s journey is different, and everyone faces ups and downs and twists and turns and unforeseen circumstances. Be gentle with yourself. You will never ‘get it right’ and it will never look exactly as you may have imagined. There will be moments of great joy mingled in with moments of great disappointment. Learn to flow with it naturally. Your most important transformations will happen very organically while you are focused on the more overarching tasks of self-improvement and self-empowerment.

Take the time to reflect on who you are at your very core. What is it that makes you authentically You, stripped of societal conditioning, familial expectations, and other outside influences? Reflect on who you were before other people and the world-at-large told you how you should be before jumping into creating another version of yourself that doesn’t align with your innermost sense of Self. Unlearn bad advice from unhealed people with good intentions. Ask yourself: What do I really want? What makes me truly happy? What brings me peace? What scares me? What am I trying to achieve, and why?

Most importantly, practice love and gratitude daily for all the little things within your personal life journey. There is no doubt the world is filled with fear, anxiety, and tragedy. The future is, always was, and always will be uncertain. 99.9% of it is completely out of your control. Release it.

The sun will continue to rise and set. The moon will cycle through its phases as it turns our tides. The stars will still shine, filling us with wonder. Our time here is finite, focus on what is within your realm of control and marvel at all that isn’t.

Breathe.

Be.