It has become a well-known custom and tradition for us to want to turn our lives around for the better on January 1 by making new year’s resolutions aimed at successfully meeting lots of goals of self-improvement. These resolutions are usually focused on changing our habits – either breaking bad habits or building new good habits – to reach those goals.
We keep making resolutions year after year, yet they seldom truly last. I have reflected on this matter, both in myself and in my clients, and I have realized that there is a good reason behind this repeated dynamic year after year.
Here are some questions I asked during my reflective insight:
- Does the strategy and the process you laid out towards reaching your new year resolution bring you joy?
- Does it give you a sense of security and safety?
- A sense of strength?
- Does the process celebrate your mind, body, soul and your surrounding environment?
- Do your core desires feel fulfilled?
The problem seems to be that somehow, during the process of execution, these resolutions we set become more militant than enjoyable, giving us a sense of failure, a sense of not being enough, of having to hustle longer and harder by always chasing the metrics of results – and honestly, that’s not something we seem to want to experience or even remotely enjoy, so we just give up! It actually ends up defeating the initial purpose altogether!
So I came up with an alternative: lifestyle rituals.
You can read the rest of my article that has been published in the Life in Naples magazine, here.