Give up your New Year's Resolutions!

"May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall!" - Aleister Crowley, Moonchild

Forget those New Year's resolutions when you decide on the last day of December how you're going to lead your life in June, six months later. Any resolution that involves making decisions about your long-term behavior reinforces the self-defeating idea of living in the future instead of the present moment. You can keep making resolutions until the cows come home, but you'll still have to live your life in the only way that it  can be done: ONE DAY AT A TIME. Rather than making long-term plans about your lifestyle choices, ask yourself: "How will I use my present moments this year?" Will you waste them in assessing your past behavior, and how you would like to behave in the future, instead of deciding to live each day of the year to the fullest?

Set up daily goals for yourself, and resolve to live with this present moment awareness for the rest of your life. Instead of giving up sugar for a year, go one day without sugar. Anyone can do anything for a day only. When you go for a day without eating sugar, you are a different person at the end of the day. And that different person can decide whether you want to do it again on the second day and so on. Don't let the old person convince you that it will be too hard anyway, and that you'll be back to eating sugar in no time at all. Don't allow the "old you" to make decisions. Only the "new you" has this privilege!

You may think that your past failures to stick to New Year's resolutions are due to a character flaw on your behalf, a lack of persistence of willpower. This is not true. You give up on your resolutions because your mind resists the notion of doing something for a long period of time, with no end in sight. It's impossible to do this, because you can't think that far ahead. Instead of trying to achieve the impossible, ask yourself every morning, "How do I want to conduct my life today? What choices will I make to enhance my health and growth as an individual?" Carry out your goals for this day only. Once you become an expert at living in the present and living a day at a time, you'll see yourself changing to your own surprise and delight.

Give up your New Year's resolutions: give up your self-defeating thinking habits, and begin to savor each day of this brand new year.

With my best wishes and love,

Bella

Photo: "Pelican" by Bella Tindale