New Year Resolutions vs. New Year Goals

As we come to the end of 2018 we starting looking ahead. Most of us have grown up with the idea of setting New Year Resolutions. These resolutions are actions or behaviors that we are committing to do for 2018 with the idea that we are going to be better people when we are done. The problem is that they tend to feel restrictive or negative and often before a few weeks have passed in the new year, we have already broken our resolutions. And once we have done that, all bets are off and we just continue on as we always have with our resolutions forgotten until December when we start looking a the upcoming new year.

What might happen if instead of resolutions you made goals for the year? Take a moment and think about what you want for your year. How do want to feel physically and emotionally? Is there something you want to accomplish with your career? How do you want your relationships to be? Is there something you really want to do? Write these things down. These will be your goals. Don't add specifics about how you are going to accomplish them. Give yourself room to accomplish them however works best. Ideas may come from meditation and from your higher self. Examples might be "my goal is to be more physically active" or "my goal is to spend more time in gratitude and joy." It's really that easy. The main point is to be open to how these goals are achieved. 

If you don't have a prescriptive way of doing things, how do you accomplish the goal? Get some paper and write them down so that you can easily read them. Then, put them where you can see them each day. You could put them on the fridge, on your mirror, on the closet door, wherever works for you. When you see them, take a moment to read through them quickly (another reason why you don't want long, wordy goals). Pick one or two of them and really feel what it would be like to have accomplished that goal. Then go about your day. Even without a lot of conscious effort on your part, you will be working on your goals. You will also be sending your intentions out to the Universe which is only too happy to help if it has a clear objective. 

This year, try writing goals for 2019 instead of resolutions and prepare for success. 

                               Happy New Year!