The New Year has begun, and yes, some of us even made a few resolutions. Well, maybe we were coaxed to do it. Maybe some of our friends have been waiting all year to use the excuse of the resolutions to ‘suggest’ it is time for some of us to ‘get more active’, for example?
Is it an automatic response to the year end, to publicly agree to follow the advice of those friends? Maybe it is about agreeing in order to ‘look good’ or be a good citizen? I can recognize a bit of that! Mostly, they give me the appearance that I am resolute in my resolutions!
Some of those ‘suggestions’ will have been broken already…or seen for what they are. Yeah, we got our friends off our back or got the agreement from those we wished to impress. Since most resolutions are broken in the first few days, no one expected us to go longer than a week anyway.
Behind every resolution there probably was, if we were totally honest with ourselves, a hidden excuse for its failure…..somehow prepared in advance and stashed in the mind’s library…for such future reference.
Whatever has happened over the first few days with my resolutions, is now up for a mulligan! Grab a chunk of a different culture and you get to do it all over again! Change the calendar, cook up a big batch of perogies and start to celebrate the holiday season all over again!
Over the past couple of weeks, my mailbox got filled with positive notes and affirmations from friends…..about, hopefully, the coming year being the best year ever.
I like that thought. Why shouldn’t it be the best ever?
But, how the heck am I supposed to even begin to have the best year ever? Last year I had the same intention and my plans quickly got shipwrecked by unforeseen circumstances. Of course, that was before I realized that life is nothing but a series of unforeseen circumstances, most of them fired at us point-blank.
We barely have time to react to the one in front of us, and the next circumstance plows into us. This is in spite of the efforts of any guru to convince us that we have even a small measure of control over these circumstances.
Now that I am using my ’resolution mulligan,’ I’ll think a bit more deeply about the whole exercise. In the past, when I considered making resolutions, I was struck by how much I try to change what I did last year, in order to make things better for this year. Things seem to start out okay, and then drift back to the status quo…..of last year!
Naturally, I ‘fix’ the situation with a quick withdrawal from my ‘reasonable excuse library’! Deep inside, I kinda know the ‘applicable excuse’ just muddled my thinking enough to reassure me that there was a sufficient good reason for stumbling. Here I sit, my self-talk smoothing things over for yet another ‘maybe later this year’, or ‘maybe next year.’
So, now what? Drop the whole exercise? I guess that’s one option and I am using a different perspective this year……now that I’ve gotten my reprieve and am using my mulligan.
I have a shorter list of resolutions, but that is irrelevant….and distinct from my bucket list. That’s still fairly large, and I’m just working out the ‘when’ and ‘how’ of the ones that matter to me.
My resolutions? Okay, here’s my perspective on them……and this should drive all the ‘positive thinkers’ crazy! Most of my friends who are trying very hard to control their thoughts so as to ‘keep positive and therefore have more wins’, are suffering resolution breakdown just as much as the rest of us are, so…..here’s my statement about handling my resolutions. It goes like this……
“When my resolutions fail…and they WILL fail (that’s a given, I say….for this exercise, at least)…….over what will they have failed?” Being brutally honest…(hey, no one is listening!)…..is the key.
‘Over what will they fail?’ Over not understanding what it means to keep my word, even to myself? That’s probably the most powerful issue to face. It could spill over into other parts of my life as well!
Over a lack of a support structure, like a coach or partner? Probably that’s the next most important thing to look at. Small resolutions require small or no support. Big resolutions require more than we can muster from ourselves, by ourselves.
What could matter most, to have the best year ever, might be to make resolutions that we are incapable of keeping…with our own resources. That could be exciting! Then, since it can’t be a solo effort in order to succeed, having a community of support would make the biggest difference and matter the most!
Have a great 2010….the best ever!
I’ll report back later on how it is working out.
Rich