What’s Up With New Year’s Resolutions?

Hello, folks, and happy new year again 🙂 We’re just over three weeks into 2017, so let’s have a quick chat about everybody’s favorite topic this time of year, new year’s resolutions! Personally, I’m cool with having them or not having them. My take is just to remember that you are loved regardless. And if you do have them, you are just as loved whether you are “successful” with them or not. In other words, your true essence, the core of what you are, is unchanged. And that’s good news! Because the core of what you are is already awesome. The evidence shows that, at least. So we have that going for us…

Feel the freedom in this. You can go to the gym or not. You can change your diet or not. Let’s just remove the pressure from the whole thing. If you decide to have one or more resolutions and don’t stick with them, that’s okay – don’t beat yourself up (unless you want to, of course, but it is definitely optional). And this might sound obvious, but it’s really not to lots of people. There’s a tremendous amount of judgment around new year’s resolutions. So just relax, get clear, and then decide what you want to do. Are there any changes you’re feeling? Go deep with it and ask why. It might be good to close your eyes, breathe deeply, let the mind quiet until you feel a shift in your body indicating that you’re in a deeper space, and then think about it in this deeper state. You’ll find more clarity that way. But make no mistake about it – you are equally loved by what made you, regardless. Woohoo!!

My brothers and I were talking over the holidays about the data on gym memberships, and apparently they spike and then drop, as you would expect. But they drop after only one month… It might even be three weeks or something like that. So if you’re one of those early exit-ers, just remember to still love yourself. Even if you are mad about the situation.

So all we’re doing is trying to bring about a more relaxed attitude to this whole new year’s resolution thing, which includes less self-judgment and more self-love. Regardless of the results. And the more you live this way, the more those resolutions will naturally show up – that’s the cool part. It might be later on down the road, though. This is because we’re dealing with the cause, which is often self-love. The more we love ourselves as we are, the more we will naturally want to shift. This is different than dealing with the symptoms. Many people don’t like themselves, and they think if they were healthier, for instance, then they’d like themselves more. This might be putting the cart before the horse, though. So I’d focus on liking yourself anyway and seeing that earth ain’t easy and we’re all pretty much doing our best. And as this becomes second nature, some of those external shifts will probably happen more naturally over time.

Another take on new year’s resolutions is to focus on the inner rather than, or in addition to, the outer. Three years ago at this time, we wrote about two simple but powerful resolutions: to relax more and to use our intuition more. And how interesting it is for me to check in with these now! It shows me that this kind of stuff that we talk about here really does take practice and that it seems to shift in layers. Most of us have been not relaxed for a long time and have been not using our intuition for a long time. So we are undoing these old habits. And you know what? Most of the time, change just doesn’t happen overnight. And how nice it is that we don’t judge ourselves anymore! Anyway, these are examples of “inner” resolutions. Talking nicely to ourselves is another HUGE one, too. Very huge. And again, we engage in these without the pressure of success or failure. So if this resonates, just close your eyes and drop in deeper for a few minutes and see if something pops in.

So there we go, folks, some talk about new year’s resolutions. Do them or not, knowing you are loved either way. The core of what you are is unchanged. And now that we have that covered… Get to the gym!! And don’t eat any sugar, either. And make sure you meditate. I have a standing new year’s resolution to not eat any cauliflower, so you can always join me in that if you really need one. And that’s nothing against cauliflower; I’m not a hater. I just seem to have come into this world not liking the taste of it. Okay, peace out. And seriously, you really should go for a run right now.