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A meditation on new year’s resolutions
I hate new year's resolutions.
Mostly because they're just like those "please respect the artist" type of post you see floating around the internet: full of good intentions, but rarely actually work out the way they’re intended to. You know what I'm talking about here, right? You start the new year with all these big goals of yours but by the end of February you're back at your couch again, eating oreos from a pack, watching netflix with no pants on.
The truth is: Intentions alone are not good enough.
Not without a plan.
Not if you don't follow through.
And those artists’ posts? You've probably seen them a million times over at facebook. The ones that try to explain that artists actually work really hard and kindly ask you to please respect them and their work. The intention behind those are good, but the outcome is anything but. Because the thing is: if you want respect, you have to earn it. You don’t beg for it, you earn it. And you’ll never earn anybody’s respect if you go through life on victim mode. Same thing goes for change.
If you actually want change in your life, you find a way to follow through.
And you do it because you actually want change and are willing to put in the work, not because you decided to look back at your your life at the end of the year and thought it would be nice if things were different.
It’s a year long project, one that you’re constantly revising.
You need a well thought out plan and you need to come up with strategies that will actually make you want to do the work. Otherwise nothing will ever happen. Or you might stick to it for a month or two and then it’s back to nothing again.
So instead of having resolutions, have a plan… and stick to it. |
Find motivation and surround yourself with things that will trigger the right actions. And do it like you mean it. Whatever you choose to do, do it because it absolutely sets your soul on fire. Intentions with actions create beautiful things. New year’s resolutions? Not so much.