Ah, the New Year. After all the party confetti has been swept away and the drinks have been had and the first day of January has come and gone. There are 365 days ahead of you now, all fresh and new. You’re revitalized and anything feels possible, even that resolution to quit sugar cold turkey that is, well, a bad idea. And the other resolution you had, to think positively in 2019? Well that one was out the window 5 minutes after the clock struck 12:00 a.m. In fact, your whole list of resolutions, in the light of a New Year, may feel positive (and don’t get me wrong, it’s always great to make a list) but resolutions are traps we make for ourselves and they are not as helpful as you’d like to believe.
However, it is better to have a list of resolutions and goals as you head into 2019, rather than no resolutions at all. They serve as a reminder regarding what’s important to us and help to keep it fresh in our minds as we go into a busy holiday season and post holiday lull.
Here at Morpheus, January is our busy season as people are checking their resolutions off and feeling ready, at this time, to make a change. However, when people come in to see us just because of resolutions, there’s often less motivation within them to make that change happen. It’s a good example of why we need to check in with ourselves consistently regarding our goals and make sure they are attached to a larger sense of our own well-being and that there is enough momentum behind each one to benefit us and not hinder our progress in the New Year.
The most important thing to remember is that happens overnight. If you want to become more of a “Yes Man” in 2019, it’s gratifying to resolve, “I will say yes to everything this year.” However, life happens. You work late sometimes, you get tired, or other things come up and suddenly, you don’t want to go out anymore. You don’t always want to say yes and that is okay. It is perfectly normal. At best, resolutions should be intentions that you set for the whole of 2019 but they should never be the “be all, end all” that many of us make them out to be. It makes it harder to stick to our goals in the New Year when we believe that we really only have one long shot at success with them.
In 2019, focus on your intentions for the year. Write them down and review them monthly to keep track of your progress (or just to see how you are feeling about the changes you are wanting to make). At the same time, give yourself room to make mistakes in the next 12 months and ample opportunity to revise which aspects of your intentions work for you and which don’t. From there, focus on the growth you are wanting to achieve in the New Year and on the opportunities for personal development. And lastly, don’t be too hard on yourself when you slip up, when things change or even if you find yourself going in a completely different direction than what you had originally imagined. After all, January 1st may be the BIG reset of the year but every day is an opportunity to live, and re-align ourselves with our goals!
One of our Client Care Coordinators published this post.