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New Year’s resolutions you can keep
Resolutions often are thought of as a good way to start the new year, but be honest now — how many of them do you really keep?
How do you feel when you don’t measure up, and how many of these resolutions simply go by the wayside with a shrug and the thought. “Oh well, I’ll try again next year”?
Consider another approach.
Say to yourself, “I am going to set myself a New Year’s resolution and I am going to try to stick to it in a ‘good enough’ way.”
Be the best that you can be in your new endeavor — be it to exercise four times a week, eat less meat, be nicer to your neighbors, whatever it is — but consider it a ‘good enough’ task.
Good enough means that if one day or one week you forget or don’t feel like following through on the resolution, don’t beat yourself up. Instead of telling yourself, “OK, I blew my New Year’s resolution — I suck,” look at things another way.
Tell yourself. “OK, I blew my New Year’s resolution just for today, for this moment in time.”
Take a beat, look at why that might have happened. Sometimes we let ourselves down because we are reacting to some other loss that we have not acknowledged. Instead we might have taken our negative emotions out on someone in the community.
Perhaps you had a disagreement with your partner and criticized your neighbor instead of confronting your partner.
Know your triggers. Own them. Remind yourself that tomorrow is another day — and you can renew your commitment to your New Year’s resolution then.
Accept your shortcomings, acknowledge your strengths and vow to keep walking down the highway, even if you stumble and fall.
Being on the highway of wellness speaks of your courage.
Mental wellness is a journey of heroes and heroines.
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CDs to soothe the soul
My Relaxation Reverie CD collection offers meditation, guided-imagery and relaxation audio for both adults and children.
Here are three audio samples:
Fall Reverie
Magic Forest
Toy Store
So true!! My new years resolution this year is to trust, trust the universe and trust myself. I truly appreciate and honor your insight and words. You have an amazing outlook on life and I look forward reading your blogs and having a moment inside your mind.
Peace and Blessings,
Karen Shuman
Karen, just curious, but how to you plan to assess whether or not you’ve met your resolution to “trust the universe and trust myself?”
This is a great post. Change is often hard! Especially with resolutions, it’s easy to get discouraged if we mess up.
One way to be more successful with goals is to actually keep a log of your progress. Then, if you mess up, it’s still easy to see all your days of success. Or, it’s easier to see gradual change—the past month I went to the gym twice a week and this month I made it there 3 times a week.
Mary