How many times have you created a New Year’s Resolution only to drop it by January 14? Why put yourself through the pressure of beating yourself up and feeling bad? Ditch your New Year’s Resolution and try a more empowering approach to bettering yourself in the new year.
Why don’t resolutions work? For various reasons: we don’t know how to hold ourselves accountable, our fears clock in and we quit, we don’t see evidence of change fast enough and we quit, we don’t start with small steps and get overwhelmed quickly. We don’t have the proper support set in place.
What does work: creating intentions. How is an intention different from a resolution? An intention is actually the heart of resolution, but it often goes over looked. For example, if you resolve to lose weight in the new year, I would ask you what you would have if you lost weight. You’d say something like “I’d be able to fit into my clothes” and again I’d ask what you’d have if you were able to fit into your clothes and you’d say something like “I’d feel more comfortable in my body.” This cycle could go on for a while, but we’d eventually get to the heart of why you TRULY want to lose weight. For now, the intention for your entire year would be “To Feel Comfortable In My Body”
Resolutions are the action steps that help you keep true to your intention. So if you want to feel more comfortable in your body, you get to come up with all kinds of ways you can feel comfortable in your body: from moving around (that can mean anything you want!) to getting more massages, to giving more hugs. You might even try some risky things like wearing that dress you’ve had your eye on even if other people might not like it on you. If it makes you feel comfortable in your body, go for it!
Using intentions rather than resolutions keeps you from beating yourself up if you fall back. You get to continually find ways to stay true to your intention and no matter what you do to support that intention you’re still living in a more empowered way. So it doesn’t matter that you missed the gym, you took a nice hot bath and slathered your skin with soothing lotion. You’re still true to your intention!
At the end of the year, write out a list of 100 ways you stayed true to your intention. Feel proud of your accomplishments and next year create a new intention to live by or stick with the one you’ve had all year!
[...] clipped from marenda.biz [...]
I think I'm one of the many people who can't keep their new year's resolutions. This year 2009, I didn't make any resolutions yet because I'm going to do those resolutions I made in 2008.
Anyway, I agree with you about intentions rather than resolutions ….why didn't I think of this before?