Every year my husband and I joke together- what will our new’s resolutions be: to be nicer to each other? Meditate more? Exercise more? Achieve our career goals that will give us more financial freedom for home improvement, et cetera et cetera? But inevitably, time passes.
We get stuck in the weeds of life and lost meandering around their long stems.
When the new year comes, we end up experiencing not so much newness and inevitably revert back into our old habits.
Now, I’m not a life coach. But it seems to me if I were to ask one, they might tell me that lots of resolving without action is common. It’s a funny conversation about we what “resolve” to do for the New Year when we discuss it with others. A conversation that usually peters out around late January, perhaps sipping wine with a friend or passing a coworker in the hall: we assume people are happily making their New Year’s dreams come true or not. It’s no longer appropriate to ask what others have resolved to do. It might make someone uncomfortable to think at that point that merely surviving or staying their course is not enough.
But what if we took a slightly different approach? This year I decided to take what I call a New Year’s Inventory, instead of just a resolution. Truth be told, my husband came up with this idea. He and I filled out goal sheets of 2017- what had we wanted to achieve? Where did we fall short? And why? I started my goal sheet kicking and screaming. This felt fake and contrived. It felt silly be writing everything down, especially with him sitting there at our favorite restaurant, no less, doing the same thing.
The truth is, once I actually got down to business and did my goal chart, it was super helpful. It went something like this:
What were the major goals I had wanted to achieve in 2017?(categories of goals listed in health, fitness, work, relationships, family, home, etc.)
Which goals were easiest to achieve? Why?
Which goals were harder to achieve? Why?
What are three goals I want to focus on right now?
I realized then if you want to make it to the top of the mountain with a new goal, you have to start in the weeds. Machetes out, it’s time to chop down the weeds. I’m really hoping I might have some room for new flowers to grow.
Fire of Spirit 