I'm not the one day a year resolution sorta girl!
Happy New Year!
Well we made it, today is the first day of 2017, and I for one am incredibly excited for what is to come. I have laid so much groundwork for a HUGE year of blessings and successes that I cannot wait for them to come to fruition. I hope you all are too, no matter what your current situation is, I pray that you are able to extract some positive things, even if it is just one thing to meditate on, and hold onto going forward into the blank canvas that is 2017.
Over the past few days I’ve had so many people ask me; “So what are you resolutions for the New Year?” My answer is always the same.
“I have no resolutions for today, as a day that stands alone, or stands out. Every single day I wake up and lie down asking myself what am I going to do with this coming day to get closer to my goals and to become my best me.”
I’m just not the sort of person who lumps all that I need to change in myself onto January 1st. First off, HELLO what a day that would be! How unfair for the first day of the year to assume all that pressure! I find that I’m constantly calling myself higher every single day, and maybe that’s because I’m a lot to handle so I need to always be checking myself. Ensuring that I’m speaking with kindness, to remind myself to be patient, not everybody flies at the same speed in life that I do. I also need to remind myself each and every day that I, like everybody I know and love is a work in progress, so I need to be kind to not only them, but myself as well.
I check in with myself every day, and often throughout the day what is working for me, and what isn’t. Meaning am I being productive with my time, am I practicing good time management so that I’m going to get to the end result of meeting my goals for the day. I also remind myself to take it easy on myself when I don’t tick every single box off my “to do list” for the day, the week, and in some cases the year. For example, I had fully expected to be completely finished the revisions on Black Picket Fence by the end of 2016, yet here I am, and it is not yet done. I could be all Debbie Downer, and filled with disappointment and self loathing, but I’m not. Instead I’m focusing on the fact that if that book was meant to be done, and sold it would have been. I choose to believe that I will get it done in the time that the Universe determines is the right time for it. The right time for it to be the success that my heart desires it to be. Which brings me to my goal of getting it rewritten by end of March 2017.
I don’t know what sort of New Year’s day person you are, but personally, I think it is most important that we all be kind to ourselves when we don’t achieve for ourselves what we had planned, and let go of expectation. Allow ourselves the freedom to be governed by faith, and trust, rather than fear and pressure. Now, this isn’t to say that I don’t have goals, or that I don’t do my damnedest to stick to them, and make them happen. Not at all. What I’m saying is that I don’t throw the baby out with the bath water if they don’t pan out in my time frame. I cut myself some slack, and grace with regards to when I slip with my eating better, working out more, being more patient, sleeping more, sleeping less, being kinder, being firmer, all the things I desire to do for myself that I know will give me a better quality of life, and help me attain my dreams. Because at the end of the day, I’m human, and I’m not perfect. I will fall. I will fail. Life is not perfect, nor does it run exactly how we want it to. The greatest gift we can give ourselves is the gift of understanding, and letting go, and probably most importantly, to not quit. Falling doesn’t mean the end. Breaking your word to yourself doesn’t mean you might as well just give up. Not at all. Having goals, dreams, or for the sake of you who love calling them resolutions, is a daily work in progress sort of thing. They are your priorities for you to recommit to moment by moment, not year by year.
I mean let’s think about this, what good is it to make grand sweeping vows of the changes you’re going to make one day a year? Think about how much simpler it will go for you if you make tiny little commitments to be who you desire to be, or have the life you dream of having if you approach it one building block at a time, instead of trying to get it all in the first month of the year? The famous saying; “Rome wasn’t built in a day” for me is never more appropriate than the first day of the year when people are already sweating about a year they have no idea what it might bring them. Be flexible, and be kind, that’s how I roll. It’s an entire year, write it one page at a time.
With love,
Shantelle
