New Year, New You? What Value are Resolutions?

It's that time again when we tend to take stock as we anticipate a new year - a time filled with personal promises that often reflect past disappointments, frustrated dreams and cherished aspirations. If you are considering making new resolutions, two weeks into the new year you are likely to be struggling to keep them. You might even get despondent at not sticking to them for a long time, and will probably wonder why you bothered, when it seems so difficult to achieve them. Again, some people are inclined to ridicule the idea of making resolutions especially when they believe their lives won’t be any better.

So is there any real point in making resolutions?

Yes, there is. Openly stating objectives for personal improvement at the start of each year is as crucial to progress and feelings of worth as actually achieving them. By focusing on something specific you desire, you are likely to have it, because you will be more inclined to work harder for it.

Resolutions are not just whims or idle promises. They rekindle new hopes, while acknowledging effort, as well as obstacles. They are likely to relate to losing weight, getting a new job, meeting a new soulmate, getting promotion, starting a new course, travelling, and giving up smoking, for example. In effect, we are trying to reduce excesses in our lives, to jettison what hasn’t worked and develop a new attitude, among many other aims.

We often get hung up on not achieving all, or most, of those resolutions, becoming demoralised by our perceived failures in our search for perfection, and then cease to bother. However, achieving all the stated resolutions is not the point. That expectation is unrealistic and a fallacy, What resolutions do, in fact, is help us to acknowledge the weaknesses and gaps in our lives, and then make a commitment to improve them over the next year... a time period which can be easily monitored. They also give us something to anticipate, as we are likely to achieve more than we thought.

By the time you reach the middle of the year, your priorities would probably have changed anyway, and what you started with as a special goal would not be so important anymore. In fact, if you achieved just 25% of your goals they will have an effect on you that was not foreseen, and will actually push you along, gradually, towards the person you aspire to be, or the destination you have in mind. It is when you don't even try at all that you are. likelt to stay in the same place, doing the same things you’ve always done, and getting the same frustrating outcomes. The need to make resolutions is a recognition that something might be missing from your life which would improve its quality, and you cannot ignore it.

For example, if you made three resolutions (like finding a partner, travelling, and stopping smoking), this is what is likely to happen:

You may find the partner first, but they smoke, too. Suddenly, the need to stop smoking might not be so urgent anymore, because you have a kindred spirit to share it with. Or you might decide you don't want to travel after all because, having fallen in love, you will both be busy planning for something else and need the travel money. So, though on the face of it, you achieved only ONE of your goals, it triggered other desires which then assumed greater priority for you. In effect, you actually achieved more than you thought. It's a fixation with achieving perfection that makes us blind to other unexpected blessings.

So what is the true point of resolutions?

Making personal or career resolutions at the beginning of a new year allows for greater clarity in your domestic situation or your work. Resolutions provide the opportunity to review your life in the past year, review what you are lacking, and the wrong turns you might have taken, and decide where you’re going. To put simple steps for change and greater fulfilment into place within a given time frame.

Personally, I could not succeed without new resolutions, so every 31st of December I do my ritual of looking back at the past year to see how many of my resolutions I achieved. For 2022 I counted 8 out of 12 or 66% success rate. Due to changes later in the year, a few were not really applicable any more, so my success rate could be interpreted as even better than that. I felt very pleased with myself, especially post-pandemic when everything was chaotic. I promptly made new resolutions for this year, which looks very promising so far, especially as I keep finding out what really keeps me buzzing in the process.

I have three major resolutions for 2024 and I shall update readers on how they are getting on as the year advances. I would be very thrilled and excited to achieve just one of them, let alone all three, and who knows what unexpected goodies might accompany them!

Self-knowledge is the greatest route to power and self-confidence. It is all about personal development and purpose in life. Nothing helps that process more than simple resolutions at crucial points on your journey to check your progress, reaffirm your purpose and enhance your experience even more.

A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR to my readers and subscribers! Thank you, for sharing my journey this year, as I couldn;t have done it without you!