I know, “New Year New Me” is a phrase you hear way too much around the first of the year. I love the idea of using the New Year as a benchmark to make changes in your life that you may have put off. I envy those that can make resolutions, implement them, and stick to them. However, I am not one of those individuals.
I don’t think I have made a proper new years resolution in about five years. After a lifetime of making them and failing at them, I decided I was going to stop putting unnecessary stress on myself. My issue is that I fixate on my resolutions to the point that I go a little crazy. I dedicate my life to the resolution and when I inevitably miss a day or do not abide by my resolution, I have a hard time giving myself a break and telling myself it is OK. I end up filling with feelings of guilt and failure and eventually end up worse off than I did in the new year.
Thankfully I came to my senses a couple of years ago and dropped the whole resolution thing. I do watch those who are so determined and on top of their resolutions admiringly, but for me, it is better to watch and encourage than to make one myself.
Why add unnecessary stress?
I believe it has a lot to do with my restless personality. I cannot do or focus on one thing for long periods of time. Even when it comes to running I Love Nice People, which is the most passionate project in my life, I have to set timers daily to focus on it. I set time increments each day and work on I Love Nice People during that time. I then set timers for me to clean, write, do laundry, run errands, etc. My life is virtually run by my iPhone timer. For some, this might sound crazy, but my mind bounces around so much that it is the only way I can get sh*t done!
Instead of a resolution, last year I decided to dedicate a word to my year. I am going to preface this by saying that this word was only relevant for about three months before I forgot it. I believe my word was "balance", but I truly could not tell you. I tried to manifest it in my day-to-day life but did not put pressure on it like I do resolutions. It was like a little encouraging notion pushing me on behind the scenes, and while I remembered it I actually enjoyed it being there.
Because I did not even remember what my word was last year, I was not going to choose a word for this year. I also don’t like the idea of searching for a word to focus on for the year. If I have a word for the year, I want it to be an organic thing. Something that happens to come up in conversations or in my life over and over again until I finally acknowledge it trying to speak to me.
Towards the end of 2018, a word was very prevalent in my life and I did not really notice it until the beginning of January. That word is “growing” or “growth”. Because it came up so much and there was no sign of it leaving me alone, I decided it would be my word for 2019. I am not sure how it will manifest in my life. I can grow in all aspects and am really excited to see if it lives in one of my endeavors, my mind, body, and soul, or in a completely different unexpected way. I am not putting pressure on it; I am letting it show me why it resonated so much. I am excited to see how it encourages me or reveals itself throughout 2019. Let’s see if I remember it three months from now!