Tag Archives: Resolutions

All Things Delightful

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It’s a brand new year — and you know what that means? A slew of articles in every media source you can find telling you about how to make and keep your resolutions. For the most part, I have heard it all before, but there was one article that truly caught my eye. It surrounded the idea of taking delight in the every day.

What a wonderful word: Delight!

I have to admit, I am over the idea of looking for things to be grateful for and writing my five grateful things down every day. I have practiced this for years and, yes, it has allowed me to see the good in my life, even trained me to look for it, and then to count my many blessings. I don’t want to knock gratitude, but I suppose I am looking for something novel this year.

Now, the idea of looking for something, some act, some one that delights. That feels like an altogether different bent on how I view my days and what makes them up. No longer am I counting my blessings, but I am thinking about my days through the lens of delight.

Did the taste on my tongue delight me?

Did a certain color that I run into delight me?

Did someone surprise me, i.e. delight me?

Is there an extraordinary moment that feels delightful?

Oh the list of questions could go on and on. Delight is different from gratitude. With gratitude, you could write down the same five things every day and be set, i.e. health, family, friends, employment, hobbies. That’s just a broad list example. I always tried to be more specific in my gratitude journal, but the truth is you don’t have to be. If I was having a bad day, for instance, that list would do.

However, what delights me is something that we can also be grateful for, but does not equate solely to gratitude. We are looking for delight in our every day life. We are looking for those things, people, experiences that bring us great pleasure. That is different. All things we delight in we may be grateful for, but not all things we are grateful for delight us.

I wish you a year of great pleasure captured in many delights. Here’s to not only receiving it, but also giving it out far and wide. We all need to be delighted!

New Years Resolution Resolve

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New Years Resolution Resolve
New Years Resolutions on Your Mind?

New Years Resolutions Resolve. In short, are you still keeping yours?

We are a month into 2023 and I suppose it’s a good moment to check in with yourself and how you are doing with those New Year’s Resolutions and your resolve to have kept them or let them go. If it just doesn’t even seem relevant any longer than there is the answer — funny how that happens.

Right after the holidays and for the majority of January it’s all about a fresh start, new habits, health, a reset, a Dry January, and more. And then the month moves on and people are often anxious to get back to the status quo, i.e. “Bartender, hand me my drink.” Just kidding, but I think you know what I mean.

So then is New Years Resolutions resolve just a flight of fancy, a set up for failure a few weeks later, a frustrating activity, an activity that gets to what we would like for ourselves even if we cannot keep them. I often wonder what the whole point is of the business of resolutions?

Well, if you made a few, if you remember them, this week marks a moment where one can check in with self to see if they are still important or not. If you can’t even remember them, then no need to think further. However, if they are still on your mind and/or you have been actively been doing them, then the check in provides an opportunity to see how it’s going. Where exactly is your resolve around your resolutions?

Remember too that New Years Resolutions can look different that an actual goal — it can be a word, a color, a feeling that you seek to name over the year. If you have chosen one of these, bring to mind the word and check in to see if it still fits for where you are now that we are month in.

The last week of January/first week of February allows a good week to check in. Well, it’s always a good idea to check in with one’s self, and New Year’s resolutions can certainly be a perfect way into this reflection.

For me, I can hardly remember what I resolved. What I want is to be intentional each day and see how I am using my time that I have been given in meaningful ways overall. So, for me, it’s not about a once a year resolution, but rather an ongoing dialogue within about where my attention, energy, and time are going.

I resolve to keep track. You?

Dear Therapist: Maintaining Those Resolutions

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How’s It Going With Those Resolutions?

Dear Therapist:

I made a few resolutions this year. It’s the end of January and I feel like I have pretty much stopped doing them all at this point. I know it’s common enough and it’s almost February. Should I let them go or try to recommit to them again?

This is definitely a common feeling right around this point in the New Year. The excited feeling of creating something new for yourself – whether that be better health or a new habit like reading more – 31 days in and we are reminded just how hard it is to change and make something new stick.

Here’s the first thing I suggest. No matter which way you go – either to keep on trying or to let them go – be kind to yourself. In the totality of the journey we are on, it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. Do not use this decision to beat yourself up or be miserable.

Second, think about it. You mention you made several resolutions. Often, trying to change too many habits at once is too much and we need to enter the zone gradually. Is there one that feels really good continuing to pursue? Alternatively, do you want to keep pursuing them all and simply recognize the lull in changing? Or do you want to just let them all be and go back to your comfortable ways?

Any of these choices are valid and fine. It really has to do with you and what intuitively feels right as to how you will continue on.

Perhaps you are going to carve out a middle ground for yourself — something beyond any of those options.

Let’s say you had resolved to go to the gym five times per week. Perhaps you do not stick with any set number, but notice when you do go to the gym and count it as a time you cared well for yourself and felt good about going without the pressure of the artificial number. Basically, noticing the changes as they are organically happening. You may have more success taking the pressure off yourself.

Tomorrow, February dawns in 2020. Some of us are continuing the resolutions, many of us are not, and some are in-between. Wherever you are, make the decision that feels right for you at this moment, knowing there is space to change.

Now is the Moment: Seize it!

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It’s the month where we look toward January first and the New Year to turn a new leaf over on life with our new year resolutions. It makes sense, I suppose. January ushers in a whole new calendar year to try and “get it right” all over again.

Statistics and experts also tell us each new year that within three weeks we will be back to our old ways. Although our intentions are astounding, our follow-through often goes astray very quickly. I have always been puzzled by this as I am also one who succumbs to letting go of my own resolutions to better myself.

That’s why I don’t wait any longer for the new year to roll around. Instead, if there is something I want to change or add or delete about my life, I seize the moment and start right then and there.

No more waiting. Not even as this crazy holiday season is ushered in — now is the time.

If you think about it, now is really all any of us have in our lives. The past is past and we are not guaranteed the new year. This moment is the one that is most precious because it is the one we are in just at this moment.

So, my thought as December says, “Hello” to you and to me – is to begin whatever you want to begin today.

Right now.