Perhaps you are contemplating your annual list of New Year’s resolutions. A common approach, yet one that is guaranteed to produce discouragement, is to look back on the year gone by and identify all the things you wanted to accomplish and didn’t, and then build your new resolutions on the shaky foundation of last year’s failures. A new plan would be to build on successes, strengths, gratitude and imagination.
Look at Your Successes
1) Look back at the times last year when you were most consistently successful in maintaining a pattern of achieving the things that are really important to you.
2) Identify the factors in your experience during those times that contributed to your success. Perhaps it was special support from others like your Master Mind Group, or the motivation of deadlines, or perhaps you found a time of day or season of the year that works best for you. When the pattern becomes clear, set out to create more of that factor in your life this year. Establish little rituals to ensure that you remember these building blocks to your success: beginning or ending the day with the same routine, rewarding yourself with cherished experiences to celebrate successes, or insuring at least one good laugh every day.
Build on Your Strengths
First, you need to know what your strengths are. Too often, we focus on our weaknesses which causes us to feel shame, discouragement and low self-esteem.
1) If one of your strengths is being extroverted, incorporate connection with others in your plan.
2) On the other hand, if you are introverted, allow yourself the time and space you need to go within and process. Then when you are clear internally, move out to process and connect with others. Draw from your own internal strength and wisdom.
3) If you have a strong sense of intuition, make use of this and begin to trust your inner knowing.
4) If you tend to be more rational, left brained, use these skills to get clear on your next steps. Then find ways of structuring your pursuits that utilize your particular strengths.
Clear Plan
1) Set no more than three goals. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too much and then end up doing nothing.
2) Set the clear steps you need to accomplish your goals
3) Ask for support. You do not need to do it alone. This is a strength of belonging to the Wellness Network.
Gratitude. There is great power in gratitude and its ability to positively impact your psychological and physical well-being. We escape the mundane and find the sacred through thankfulness. “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world” (John Milton).
Imagination. Imagination is the nutrient-rich soil that we need to germinate new ideas with new enthusiasm. We have suggested focusing on successes and strengths, not failures and weaknesses. But there is a time to stop focusing altogether, and to allow the quiet, reflective pondering of “beginner’s mind”. When you refrain from defining too precisely what you want to manifest, your mind and the universe around you open up to previously unseen potentials. And what is delivered to your doorstep may be actually vastly more adventurous and fulfilling than anything you could have defined precisely with your own calculations.
Imagination expresses in many different ways: dreams and daydreams, symbols and metaphor, visual art and music and movement. Be receptive to the many splendid inspirations that present themselves to you every day. Be open. Imagine that!
New beginnings are an auspicious opportunity to chart a new course.
We envision the coming year 2012 to be full of opportunities for growth, healing, and selfless service for us all.
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