Resolutions, changes and how to make it stick.

New Year, new hope and desires. We all place so much faith in our ability to make change from a magical date, that it can be easy to forget that the impetus of such change lies within ourselves. We could all make a change any day. Just decide that it’s time to be better with exercise, or diet, or stress, and start that day, but we all seem to need some greater force which will compel us to create this change. Is it procrastination, or some belief in the magic of numbers? Or is it just easy to go with the flow of creating change from a resolution of a New Year, from FebFast, from Dry July.

The rhetoric is appealing. The reasons probably matter little. What really matters is how we manage to maintain the change…

Every decision that we make is held only by ourselves. You can make promises, bald lies or witness based statements, but (short of signing a legal document) the only person who will uphold the letter of the law is you.

So what are you going to do in 2018 which will make you feel strong? What change are you going to create to make you inspire a feeling of lightness and energy in your body? What sequence of events can you aspire to, which will allow for wellness, ease of spirit and a sense of purpose?

Change can be small things. Cut out sugar. Go off the grog, midweek at least. Stop nagging the kids.  Cut out the cigarettes. Eat only local grown produce. Be on time.  Are these small things? I’d like to think so, although I know that when we get back into the routine, lifestyle changes are the things which slip too easily into the “I’ll do it later” basket.

Pick one change. Investigate your own motives and beliefs for wanting to make this change. Then set a period of time by which you must stick to said change. I’d suggest four weeks, but it’s negotiable, depending upon what you are changing. And then just do it. But at the start and again at the end of the four weeks, take the time to sit down and review where you came from and then what has changed for you. Are you proud? Are you feeling more well? More full of energy, or vim, or able to get up in the morning? Show yourself how well you have done, and what benefit there was. Then create another step in the change. Give yourself discernible reasons to see the benefits of the discomfort of change.

Life is what we choose to make it. We can allow ourselves to be lazy and achieve less, or we can step up, and be proud of ourselves. It is so very personal, and no-one else can judge you for this, but this year, give yourself permission to be Proud.

EA
31/12/17

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