Sunshine in April

Happy New Year and welcome to the next calendar year of your life. This is often a time of reflection on what you’d like to improve on with many making new – or yet again the same old – resolutions to achieve. We have these ideas that this time it will be different. This time will be the time you really commit and stick to those goals. This time you have the willpower to succeed.

You can do this!

But do you the commitment?

Is willpower really a thing?

Or is it something to blame a lack of success on? Like a personal flaw you don’t quite have enough of to persist with this new behavior change?

Maybe you’ll make it all year and create a habit that sticks or maybe you’ll keep starting tomorrow. For real. Tomorrow is THE day! Maybe you’ll make it to the end of Jan or halfway to the 2^nd Friday in what has become known as Quitter’s Day. It is interesting that many will quit a habit change plan on a Friday, just in time for the weekend. Or maybe you’ll try again next month, after Easter, or in time for summer. No. Summer is too hard. Wait until summer is over. You’ll start before the fall holidays commence.

You can do this now!

Younger age groups tend to be more likely to make new year resolutions and as we age, the percentages decrease. Not as many in middle age or older ages make resolutions anymore – leave that for the younger ones with long lives ahead and plenty of time to make those changes. Maybe these age groups have simply been through the cycle too many times and realize they never committed fully so why bother at this point.

Maybe we learn over time that the same old you is someone to be cherished and loved as it. You’ve been through a lot of life that brought you to this place in time. Maybe that is where you’re supposed to be. Learning to love you as you are with all your human flaws.  

I’ve been through the resolution process many times and those lessons have taught me that if I am not fully committed with a clear plan of action, the new behavior is not going to last. That plan needs daily commitment, consistency, active reminders on the outside and inside, what if’s in place for what to do when the process hits roadblocks, and the persistence to restart fresh or where I went off track without throwing in the towel. It takes about a solid 66 days of daily consistency to make that behavior stick, but it only takes one day of conscious commitment at a time to work through those 66 days.

My hope for you is not to defeat your new path or take away the motivation you have. I am cheering you on to remember why you want to reshape parts of who you are and to reshape your self-concept into that evolved person you want to be.

My bigger hope is that you learn self- acceptance and appreciate the you of today. Once you have that appreciation, then you can reflect on what changes you can incorporate for your physical health (move daily, eat those veggies), mental health (practice that meditation, challenge those negative thoughts), financial health (pay off the debt, build and stick to that budget, plan that vacation without breaking the bank), or social health (check in with those loved ones regularly, stick to those plans to meet up for healthy lunch or walk outside).

Now I’m off to work on that commitment to writing this blog regularly and sharing more Psy-cabulary videos. The next piece will be how to implement these personal resolutions that require reshaping part of the self-concept. Going back to the partially complete article I started but didn’t finish last January.

My recommitment to this labor of love I’ve been working on for over a decade.

For real this time!